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The role of large private sector firms in rerouting our food systems towards sustainability through climate-oriented innovation is highly contested. The contestation has resulted in a portrayal in academic literature of these incumbents as either the key driver of sustainability transitions or as fundamentally contradictory to addressing climate change in food systems. Controversies and tensions can reinforce stalemates, which hamper progress towards climate-oriented innovation. This study explores the utility of a paradox lens which shifts the research gaze to the emergence of unavoidable and persistent tensions in encounters of distinct logics and lines of action, and opens space to examine how these encounters can nevertheless be used productively and creatively in overcoming stalemates. Based on reflexive practice and interviews with professionals from seven purposefully selected incumbent private sector firms in the agri-food sector, we identify five paradoxes: the paradox of direction--between mitigation and adaptation; the paradox of justification--between exploration and exploitation; the paradox of internal alignment--between mainstreaming and specialization; the paradox of external alignment--between collaboration and competition; and the paradox of evidence--between accountability and learning. Our analysis of how agri-food firms navigate paradoxes focuses on considerations, tensions, and decisions in organizing climate-oriented innovation. In our discussion, we examine whether and how paradoxical thinking enables civil society practitioners to accelerate climate-oriented innovation in food systems through interactions and collaborations with the private sector. We conclude that a paradox lens affords researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to move beyond the binary view on the role of incumbents' climate-oriented innovation, and instead provides strategic insights for engaging incumbents and their inherent contradictions in transforming our food systems under a changing climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Although economists and strategy theorists have extensively researched market entry barriers in the Western industrial market and post-entry barriers in the e-commerce market, few studies have focused on entry barriers in the context of the unique challenges in China's business landscape. In this study, a survey was conducted with 139 Chinese marketing executives of consumer goods e-commerce firms to elucidate the dimensions and relative importance of market entry barriers in China. Specifically, this study aims to explore the barriers to entry that exist in the Chinese consumer goods e-commerce market, determine their importance, and identify potential dimensions through factor analysis. Methodology/approach: This study employed an in-depth interview with nine marketing executives from China consumer goods e-commerce firms, and the instrument was revised accordingly. Then questionnaire adopted a simple random sampling method to select 300 enterprises as survey respondents. In total, 195 firms completed and returned the questionnaires by the deadline, resulting in 139 valid responses being collected. Findings: This study explores 33 entry barriers and reveals seven dimensions of China's consumer goods e-commerce market, highlighting incumbents with an absolute cost advantage barrier as the most significant barrier, and the cost of establishing a branch office as the least significant barrier, as perceived by Chinese business executives. Research implications: Extant literature has mostly confirmed the value and practical significance of market entry barriers in Western markets or industrial markets. However, there are few studies on entry barriers in China's e-commerce market, particularly in the consumer goods e-commerce market. Our research attempts to provide a theoretical basis for China's consumer goods e-commerce market entry barriers. Practical implications: Studying market entry barriers can help firms better adapt to market changes, optimize their operational modes according to market demands and norms, and enhance their competitiveness. The exploration of this research could be utilized by e-commerce businesses to become more successful or avoid failure. Originality/value/contribution: This study complements the existing research on market entry barriers in China and the West. It complements barriers to entry into the consumer e-commerce market based on the Chinese economic context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of large private sector firms in rerouting our food systems towards sustainability through climate-oriented innovation is highly contested. The contestation has resulted in a portrayal in academic literature of these incumbents as either the key driver of sustainability transitions or as fundamentally contradictory to addressing climate change in food systems. Controversies and tensions can reinforce stalemates, which hamper progress towards climate-oriented innovation. This study explores the utility of a paradox lens which shifts the research gaze to the emergence of unavoidable and persistent tensions in encounters of distinct logics and lines of action, and opens space to examine how these encounters can nevertheless be used productively and creatively in overcoming stalemates. Based on reflexive practice and interviews with professionals from seven purposefully selected incumbent private sector firms in the agri-food sector, we identify five paradoxes: the paradox of direction—between mitigation and adaptation; the paradox of justification—between exploration and exploitation; the paradox of internal alignment—between mainstreaming and specialization; the paradox of external alignment—between collaboration and competition; and the paradox of evidence—between accountability and learning. Our analysis of how agri-food firms navigate paradoxes focuses on considerations, tensions, and decisions in organizing climate-oriented innovation. In our discussion, we examine whether and how paradoxical thinking enables civil society practitioners to accelerate climate-oriented innovation in food systems through interactions and collaborations with the private sector. We conclude that a paradox lens affords researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to move beyond the binary view on the role of incumbents’ climate-oriented innovation, and instead provides strategic insights for engaging incumbents and their inherent contradictions in transforming our food systems under a changing climate.

Established organisations and new ventures search for knowledge in the face of disruption. The activation of corporate-startup collaborations facilitates access to new and complementary knowledge. This type of collaboration has become increasingly popular as a corporate response to technological and market disruptions. However, there is growing evidence of the multiplicity of outcomes, intrinsically related to the broad diversity of forms and collaboration models. In this special issue, we include five contributions that give an overview of the phenomenon. We explore theoretical lenses that help us understand the potential tensions emerging from asymmetrical inter-organisational collaborations and possible solutions to make those collaborations successful. We delineate the theoretical and practical contributions of the papers and summarise the research opportunities that emerge around a phenomenon that keeps evolving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As cooperatives become a crucial part of our society's repository of solutions for addressing the sustainability challenges, the very emergence of cooperatives continues to puzzle scholars. In this study we address a central concern for both organizational scholars and sustainability advocates, i.e. where and under which conditions cooperatives emerge as an alternative form to corporations. Building on organizational ecology theories, we argue that the varying organizational characteristics within local incumbent forms constitute an additional layer to explain cooperatives' emergence, above and beyond the known effects of community characteristics and incumbents' aggregated density (or capacity). Our analysis of a unique data set of German energy cooperatives between 2003 and 2010 support our hypotheses. Our results show that energy cooperatives are more likely to be founded where incumbent utilities have higher average age and greater size diversity, because age-related inertia and lack of competition among incumbents of diverse size limit their adaptability towards serving the new market demand for renewable energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Descriptive representation is shaped by more than the number of seats group members win—it is also informed by how group members hold on to seats long after election day. Drawing from the literatures on women of color, women, and minorities in politics, this study argues that the relationship between incumbents and descriptive representation is different among groups that hold distinctive political positioning and power. To uncover those differences, the article introduces a new measure called descriptive maintenance, which accounts for a group's ability to retain descriptive representation in a seat across unique group members and elections. This multidimensional approach expands current conceptualizations by treating incumbency and descriptive representation as interrelated, group-level, phenomena. This framework is tested using nearly 60,000 observations of state elections data in an analysis focused on a group of state legislative incumbents that has rarely been explicitly examined, and yet outnumbers all others: white men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Politik is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Auctions are increasingly used to support renewable energy sources (RES). The choice of the remuneration scheme is one of the major design challenges policymakers face. This paper analyzes the effects of remuneration schemes on RES auctions' success in markets with imperfect competition. I develop a game-theoretical auction/operation framework to model the feedback effects between the spot market's strategic behavior and the auction stage's bidding behavior. The analysis indicates that policymakers concerned about true-cost bidding, allocative efficiency, spot price, total payments to RES, and non-realization risk may prefer feed-in-tariff (FIT) remuneration. However, feed-in-premium (FIP) remunerations may outperform FIT ones from a social welfare perspective, particularly in markets with dirty technologies at the margin. A machine-learning-based simulation strategy is also presented, indicating that, for an auction for 14 GW of onshore wind in France, FIP auction with a winning incumbent leads to 1.40% higher prices than FIT ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous work on candidate campaign finance in list proportional representation systems has focused on differential electoral returns of spending for incumbent and challenger candidates. This article asks whether incumbents and challengers in these systems fund election campaigns from different sources. We hypothesize that incumbents receive more: (a) contributions from individual and corporate donors; and (b) financial support from party organizations, as party elites strategically deploy resources to constrain intra-party competition. The analysis is based on a dataset on campaign funding sources of candidates for two legislative elections in Colombia (2014 and 2018). The results confirm that party organizations transfer more financial resources to incumbents than to challengers. Contrary to expectations, parties do not specifically support the electorally most vulnerable incumbents. We also find that challengers receive higher levels of non-corporate private donations than incumbents. These findings provide insights into individual campaigns and demonstrate how parties coordinate intra-party competition through campaign funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate-related stranded assets have been a popular research topic of many studies over the last decade. Past studies have mostly focused on estimations of stranded assets and mitigation options. While the studies consider energy transitions, the influential factors behind the choice of options have not been investigated in-depth. Because such choices may have path dependency, affecting the direction and speed of subsequent changes, it is critical to understand stranded asset risk and its relations to choices and the transition more comprehensively. To do so, we conduct a systematic literature review to explore the impacts of stranded asset risk on incumbents' decision-making and energy transitions. Our findings demonstrate that stranded asset risk, coupled with transition costs, energy security and sustainability concerns determine the pathway of energy transitions. Higher perceived stranded assets will pave the transition toward a renewable energy-based system, but high concerns about transition costs, energy security, and sustainability would retard the transition or direct the system toward different pathways. Abrupt policy change intensifies regime resistance and energy injustice, but slow change strengthens lock-ins into traditional systems. • Incumbents' perceived economic loss due to stranded asset risk affects energy transitions. • Transition costs, energy security, and sustainability concerns contribute to incumbents' decisions toward transition pathways. • Stranded assets should be carefully considered in decision-making. • Sudden policy changes tend to hinder rather than accelerate the transition. [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]

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]

The digital era and mounting sustainability pressures have reinforced incumbents' need to respond to radical innovation through business model innovation. Despite advancements in the literature on incumbent business model innovation, there are still open debates regarding strategies for achieving systematic innovation and poor integration between the literature on managing multiple business models and the strategic management of business model innovation. To address these gaps, we investigated three Brazilian incumbents that developed systematic business model innovation processes and analyzed their evolution. We followed a multiple case study methodology, deploying system dynamics as an analytical lens. Our findings showed that the evolution of innovation departments from business model renewal to exploration is based on a systemic tension between solving the core problems of the business and creating openness to innovation, innovation capabilities, and resources. By assigning the innovation departments a vital role in the renewed business model and exploring synergies to manage multiple business models, the companies create a "buffer" to sustain exploratory business model innovation. We suggest that the strategy for conducting business model renewal matters, especially when the renewal is transformative, aiming to shape the future. We contribute to incumbent business model innovation theory by showing the system dynamics behind the evolution from business model renewal to exploration and by connecting the management of parallel business models to the strategic management of business model innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A networked sustainable business model innovation (SBMI) by incumbent power-generating equipment manufacturers and generators is tested. • The networked SBMI can accelerate transitions only in segments where incumbent manufacturers gain a competitive edge. • Complete scrapping of coal power-generating equipment manufacturing capacity accelerates transitions. The sustainability transition literature has paid scant attention to incumbent generation equipment manufacturers, constituting a complementary element in electricity systems. To fill this research gap, this study develops the concept of networked sustainable business model innovation (SBMI) as an analytical framework to explore how incumbent manufacturers change business models in response to changes in incumbent power generators and how these changes influence transitions in electricity systems. Based on case studies of three major Chinese incumbent power generation equipment manufacturers, our findings reveal that the networked SBMI by incumbent power generators and power generation equipment manufacturers can accelerate transitions to RES-E-based electricity systems in the segments where incumbent power generation equipment manufacturers have the capabilities to reorient and gain a competitive edge in the market. However, incumbent power generators can resume coal power projects unless incumbent power generation equipment manufacturers completely scrap coal power equipment production capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We adopt a comprehensive approach by systematically quantifying scientific creativity through four distinct indicators. • We add additional insights into the positive relationship between team freshness and the ability to integrate atypical knowledge or expertise. • We establish positive associations between team freshness, freshness of incumbents, and freshness of newcomers with scientific creativity. • Our study reveals additional promotional effects associated with the freshness of incumbents. Scientific collaborations are widely acknowledged as a key factor in advancing contemporary science. Using the absence of prior collaboration relationships among all team members of a focal paper to assess team freshness, previous studies demonstrated strong associations between team freshness and the ability to generate original and multidisciplinary papers. However, the intricate interplay between team freshness and the experiences of new members remains less explored. For example, individuals can be classified based on their experiences or ages, distinguishing between newcomers with limited experience and incumbents with a track record of publications. Using the existing definition of team freshness, we focus on categorizing fresh teams into two distinct types: those consisting of fresh incumbents and those with fresh newcomers. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset comprising over 5 million articles, we systematically investigate the relationship between team freshness, the freshness of incumbents, and the freshness of newcomers on various creativity measurements. Our analysis yields several key findings. Firstly, both team freshness and the freshness of newcomers display a declining trend over time, whereas the freshness of incumbents remains stable. Secondly, we observe strong positive associations between team freshness, the freshness of incumbents, and the freshness of newcomers with regard to various creativity indicators. Strikingly, we emphasize substantial promotional powers of the freshness of incumbents on creativity, even after adjusting for overall team freshness. Our results have important policy implications related to the formation of creative teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Collaboration with other actors is one feasible route to scaling SBMs. • Collaboration is likely to depend on the type of firm and value proposition. • We suggest a framework to distinguish scaling-through-collaboration strategies. • We propose four strategies newcomers and incumbents can use based on their position. Over the past decade, scholars and practitioners have increasingly paid attention to sustainable business models (SBM). How to upscale SBMs is a key question in transition research, but current research has rarely adopted a firm-level perspective to discuss the scaling strategies that initiators of SBMs can use. Collaboration with other actors is one of these scaling strategies, but its adoption by firms hinges on different factors. Considering the type of initiator of the SBM (newcomer vs. incumbent firm) and the differentiation of the SBM's value proposition (high or low), we propose a framework which distinguishes four 'scaling-through-collaboration' strategies that firms can use. We explain each strategy with illustrative examples and discuss the array of potential partners and the incentives to pursue collaboration with them. Our work shows how firms can contribute to sustainability transitions by leveraging collaboration to scale their SBM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Politik is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A pandemic calls for large-scale action across national and international innovation systems in order to mobilize resources for developing and manufacturing crisis-critical products efficiently and in the huge quantities needed. Nowadays, these products also include a wide range of digital innovations. Given that many responses to the pandemic are technology driven, stakeholders involved in the development and manufacturing of crisis-critical products are likely to face intellectual property (IP)-related challenges. To (governmental) decision makers, IP challenges might not appear to be of paramount urgency compared to the many undoubtedly huge operational challenges to deploy critical resources. However, if IP challenges are considered too late, they may cause delays to urgently mobilize resources effectively. Innovation stakeholders could then be reluctant to fully engage in the development and manufacturing of crisis-critical products. This article adopts an IP and innovation perspective to learn from the currently unfolding COVID-19 pandemic using secondary data, including patent data, synthesized with an IP roadmap. We focus on technical aspects related to research, development, and upscaling of capacity to manufacture crisis-critical products in the huge volumes suddenly in demand. In this article, we offer a set of contributions. We provide a structure, framework, and language for those concerned with steering clear of IP challenges to avoid delays in fighting a pandemic. We provide a reasoning why IP needs to be considered earlier rather than too late in a global health crisis. Major stakeholders we identify include 1) governments; 2) manufacturing firms owning existing crisis-critical IP (incumbents in crisis-critical sectors); 3) manufacturing firms normally not producing crisis-critical products suddenly rushing into crisis-critical sectors to support the manufacturing of crisis-critical products in the quantities that far exceed incumbents’ production capacities; and 4) voluntary grassroot initiatives that form during a pandemic, often by highly skilled engineers and scientists in order to contribute to the development and dissemination of crisis-critical products. For these major stakeholders, we draw up three scenarios, from which we identify associated IP challenges they face related to the development and manufacturing of technologies and products for 1) prevention (of spread); 2) diagnosis of infected patients; and 3) the development of treatments. This article provides a terminology to help policy and other decision makers to discuss IP considerations during pandemics. We propose a framework that visualizes changing industrial organizations and IP-associated challenges during a pandemic and derive initial principles to guide innovation and IP policy making during a pandemic. Obviously, our findings result only from observations of one ongoing pandemic and thus need to be verified further and interpreted with care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the regulatory approaches to open access passenger rail competition. This kind of competition has developed substantially in the EU during the past decade. There have been major entries into the national main lines in Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Sweden. These entries have been very popular with passengers and rail ridership has gone up substantially. However, there have also been costs to these entries. The operations of the new entrants are diminishing economies of density, leading to higher unit costs. Further challenges include cherry-picking behaviour, scarce infrastructure capacity, tariff disintegration, and long-term sustainability. The major question is whether the social benefits outweigh the costs. This paper aims to review emerging evidence in the field of open access entries and approaches to their regulation. The scope of this paper is open access passenger rail entries in Europe after 2000 with a particular emphasis on the major entries that took place in Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Sweden after 2011. The contribution of this article to the existing literature is threefold. Firstly, it provides an up-to-date review of open access entries in Europe. Secondly, it combines the results of simulation studies with empirical evidence to provide an overview of market impacts. Lastly, it reviews the spectrum of regulatory approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper explores incumbent strategies that target mechanisms of science for policymaking. • It studies resistance to moving away from single-use models towards more circular ones. • Power analysis helps uncover deeply rooted patterns of incumbency. Transitions to a circular economy in Europe have not accelerated despite being a priority of the Green Deal. One reason behind the slow uptake is the active resistance by incumbent actors. This article explores the case of Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation to uncover resistance and capture strategies of incumbent single-use and takeaway industry actors that succeeded in reducing the ambition of the policy. Building on lobbying databases, and document and media analysis, the article uncovers strategies of using the legitimacy of science to exert influence. It shows how incumbents created doubts about the evidence base and produced their own scientific messaging; presents the ways they legitimised their role as scientific stakeholders in institutional settings; and examines the approach they took to align their interests with the policymakers' expectations. It analyses these strategies from a power perspective to investigate the complexity of capture and to provide a discussion on the mechanisms that reinforce deep-rooted patterns of incumbency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Politik is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The recent advent of electric motorcycles represents an eco-innovation that guarantees environmental sustainability and opens up market opportunities for firms. In this paper, we analyse firms' entry into the motorcycle industry in Italy. The role of incumbent firms in the presence of new innovative niches is ambiguous. On the one hand, incumbents may display inertial behaviours, while on the other hand, they can exploit their experience and dynamic capabilities to promptly catch opportunities and enter the new niche. Based on an original dataset, we develop an empirical investigation of the role of incumbent vs. new firms in the electric motorcycle niche. We contribute to the literature by showing that new firms have so far revealed more vivid dynamics while incumbents seem to stay at the window, thus supporting the idea of the existence of inertia among incumbent firms in this industry. However, among the incumbents that have entered the new market niche, we show that the largest and those with experience in the production of scooters with 0–50 cc engines are the most likely to enter the new niche market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does globalization affect politics? One of the most controversial aspects of globalization is offshoring, when manufacturing operations and business functions move abroad. Although voters generally dislike offshoring, it remains unclear how moving jobs abroad impacts democratic elections. Using a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, the author finds that incumbent government parties lose more votes in municipalities where a local plant moved production abroad between elections than in municipalities that did not experience such an event. The result holds across various time periods, different incumbent parties and diverse types of elections. In both national and regional elections, voters punish incumbent government parties when a local firm moves production abroad. Incumbent parties' vote shares fall as the number of jobs lost due to offshoring increases. In multiparty governments, voters disproportionately punish the largest coalition party for offshoring. The results of an original survey administered in Spain verify the importance of offshoring for voters' retrospective evaluations of incumbents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Provides insights into the role of incumbent firms in shaping markets for alternative technologies. • Comparative case analysis incorporating two heavy vehicle manufacturers and two alternative technology platforms. • Develops a conceptual framework that links firm-level capabilities with system-level market processes. • The framework makes it possible to map how incumbents deploy market-shaping capabilities to shape favorable future markets. • The analysis shows how incumbents mobilize resources and engage key stakeholders to create different kinds of value. This paper analyzes how incumbent firms act to shape markets for new technology alternatives. It introduces a framework that highlights important linkages between the dynamic market-shaping capabilities of individual firms and market-shaping processes on a system level. The framework is used to analyze the endeavors of two large heavy vehicle manufacturers to introduce two technology platforms—electrified trucks and trucks fueled by liquefied gas—as alternatives to traditional diesel-fueled trucks. The analysis shows how incumbent firms deploy market-shaping capabilities to claim legitimate positions in envisioned future markets. The paper concludes by pointing to the dynamism of market interactions in sustainability transitions, showing how firms induce system-level reconfigurations and how such reconfigurations induce changes at the level of the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disruption theory intends to explain how start-ups and newcomers can appear out of an unnoticed point in the market, find their ways into the main market and put the interests of long-standing companies in danger drastically. Regarding the originality and conceptual ambiguity of disruption, this study first tries to explain the two concepts of disruption and disruptive innovation. Subsequently, focusing on the literature related to the evaluation of disruption, it applied meta-analysis approach and probed 13 selected researches in order to find the effective factors founding this phenomenon. In the following step, the acquired factors and indicators were refined through sharing them with innovation and technology experts, based on the Fuzzy screening method. Finally, a framework containing disruption steps, the innate characteristics of innovation and the contextual conditions for evaluating the potential of an innovation at the industry level is presented.

What is the effect of the revenue on challengers’ votes? Literature assumes that challengers are more efficient at transforming revenue into votes (Jacobson, 1978). Our goal is to empirically analyze this relationship by defending the hypothesis that challenging candidates are more efficient at turning revenue into votes. To test our hypothesis, we will analyze the data for governors of 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018. We use the Ordinary Least Squares Regression Model (OLS) to estimate the effect of revenue on voting. Our focus is directed to candidates for Brazilian state governments, whose results indicate that: 1) there was a significant drop in campaign spending after the law prohibiting private funding; 2) The average cost of voting in 2018 is R $ 8,84; and 3) challengers are more efficient at turning revenue into votes.

The digital era and mounting sustainability pressures have reinforced incumbents’ need to respond to radical innovation through business model innovation. Despite advancements in the literature on incumbent business model innovation, there are still open debates regarding strategies for achieving systematic innovation and poor integration between the literature on managing multiple business models and the strategic management of business model innovation. To address these gaps, we investigated three Brazilian incumbents that developed systematic business model innovation processes and analyzed their evolution. We followed a multiple case study methodology, deploying system dynamics as an analytical lens. Our findings showed that the evolution of innovation departments from business model renewal to exploration is based on a systemic tension between solving the core problems of the business and creating openness to innovation, innovation capabilities, and resources. By assigning the innovation departments a vital role in the renewed business model and exploring synergies to manage multiple business models, the companies create a “buffer” to sustain exploratory business model innovation. We suggest that the strategy for conducting business model renewal matters, especially when the renewal is transformative, aiming to shape the future. We contribute to incumbent business model innovation theory by showing the system dynamics behind the evolution from business model renewal to exploration and by connecting the management of parallel business models to the strategic management of business model innovation.

• Systemic sustainability transitions require changes in large incumbent organizations. • Specific structure-agency relations shape firms' sustainability potential. • Alteration spaces reflect dynamics of firm-specific structure-agency constellations. • Alteration spaces can serve as temporary hotspots for increasing sustainability. Large organizations play a key role in sustainability transitions through their systems of production and consumption and their influence on wider society. Recognizing the uniqueness and complexity of structure-agency relations in organizations, this paper uses the example of food provisioning to compare the sustainability potential of eight national and multinational organizations located in Ireland. By introducing the novel concept of 'alteration spaces' to describe specific intra-organizational structure-agency constellations and their dynamics over time, we question existing interventionist views of organizational change. We argue these tend to overstate extra-organizational impulses for change while paying insufficient attention to organizational culture and committed individuals as potential sustainability advocates within organizations. This, in turn, facilitates a reconceptualization of individual agency as embedded within an organizational context, thereby challenging dominant understandings that disregard the potential of established organizations to initiate intra-organizational changes that shape and reflect sustainability transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation determined the influence of technique and experience on arm retraction force required to apprehend a non-compliant suspect. Phase-One: Nine experienced RAAF military-police completed four apprehension simulations, peak arm retraction force was measured; i) Control(CON), ii) Pressure-Point(PP), iii) Targeted-Striking(TS) and iv) 2-Person(2Per) techniques. Phase-Two: Experienced (EXP, n = 8) or Inexperienced (INEXP, n = 22) military-police completed CON, PP and Pressure-Point + Coaching(PP + C). Strength was assessed in INEXP. EXP produced more force (178.7 N ± 25.9) than INEXP during CON, but no participant successfully apprehended the suspect. All EXP were successful with PP, arm retraction force 357 N (CI: 233.7,480.2) was lower compared to CON, but no difference was observed between PP and CON for INEXP. PP + C, 82% of INEXP were successful, force declined 138.2 N (CI: 67.8,208.5) compared to CON. All EXP required PP for successful apprehension. INEXP required PP + C for apprehension success. Muscular strength had a limited relationship with arm retraction force. Practitioner summary: For law enforcement personnel, apprehension of a suspect is a critical and physically demanding task, where success is associated with muscular strength and technique. We observed success in the apprehension of a simulated suspect by military law enforcement personnel was primarily determined by participant skill and experience and not muscular strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the targeted spending of public resources provide electoral benefits for incumbents? Despite the attention of scholars to that question, the empirical results are mixed thus far. The present paper supplies insights into the electoral benefits of discretionary funding on local elections. I study the consequences of pork-barrel politics in 7355 competitive mayoral elections in Slovakia between 2006 and 2018, finding that more grants from the central government enhance the likelihood of mayors winning reelection. The same advantage applies to mayors whose municipalities receive grants in local election years. The effects of the number of grants obtained as well as the timing of their distribution are, however, moderated by municipal population. More specifically, a larger number of grants and resources obtained near the end of the mayoral term provides electoral benefits only to small town mayors but give no advantage to the mayors of larger urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social networks websites, and specially the LinkedIn platform, have changed the landscape of recruitment and personnel selection to a unified organizational process. Thus, apart from using LinkedIn as a recruitment tool, professionals also use it to make evaluative inferences regarding the individual characteristics of the candidates (e.g., their personality). However, most of the research focused on LinkedIn has left aside the evidence about its validity for decision making in the work setting. In our study we analyze the criterion oriented validity of LinkedIn incumbents professional profiles (N = 615) in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector with some measures of job performance. The results show four major factors underlying LinkedIn profiles about professional experience, social capital, updating knowledge, and non-profesional information. These factors are significantly related to productivity, absenteeism, and the potential for professional development. These findings are discussed in light of their theoretical and practical implications.

• Pluralised understandings of incumbencies are needed in research on transitions. • Applying an existing power framework to a niche project to identify four patterns in the enabling role of incumbents. • Enabling role is influenced by incumbents from multiple regimes, belonging to local authorities, neighbouring and more distant regimes. • The power of structural trends related to the urgency of sustainability challenges also provides clarification. • Generating novel insights on the varieties of incumbencies and the conditions under which these may enable niche projects. More pluralised understandings of incumbencies are often overlooked in transitions research, which may lead to underestimating the enabling roles of incumbents in niche projects. This study explores these roles by applying a power framework to five struggles revolving around a path-breaking decentralised wastewater treatment project in the city of Ghent (Belgium). Remarkably, incumbents from multiple regimes use power to enable the niche project. The study identifies and discusses four patterns in the enabling role of incumbents in niche projects. These patterns are clarified by focussing on incumbents from multiple regimes, belonging to local authorities, neighbouring and more distant regimes, as well as on the power of structural trends related to the urgency of sustainability challenges. As such, the study contributes to the understanding of multiple incumbencies and the conditions under which these may reinforce niche projects. For practitioners, the study underscores the role of power dynamics in the water/wastewater sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Build an analytical framework to understand incumbent companies' heterogeneous responses. • Identify firm-specific, socio-economic, and institutional factors as determinants. • Policy feedback effects and development of complementarities can increase heterogeneity. • Triggering co-evolution with socio-economic and institutional factors can accelerate sustainability transitions. Transitions research has often been unintentionally biased toward novelty and assumes incumbents as homogeneous groups that are "locked-in" to certain sociotechnical regimes. In reality, incumbents are heterogeneous at the company and industrial levels and thus have heterogeneous responses that can both accelerate and deter sustainability transitions. To fill the research gap, this paper explores the determinants of such heterogeneous responses and insights for sustainability transitions, taking China's major incumbent power generators as its case study. The results are: first, incumbent companies respond heterogeneously if firm-specific, socioeconomic, and institutional factors give different opportunities and barriers. Policy feedback effects and development of complementarities in infrastructure, instruments, and organizational elements can increase heterogeneous responses. Second, their heterogeneous responses can accelerate sustainability transitions if they go beyond destabilization of regime, legitimization of alternative policy instruments, and development of infrastructure and institutions that trigger co-evolution with socioeconomic and institutional factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the way different types of news organizations address collaboration in innovation. A qualitative analysis of 31 expert interviews in the Dutch news field shows that especially incumbents are perceived internally oriented when it comes to organizing their innovation processes. Although they might acknowledge that the challenges are demanding and the stakes are high, they speak of innovation mainly in terms of competition, and are therefore still subject to a traditional bounded rationality. Also, in the Dutch context, the tensions between commercial news organizations and publicly financed news organizations are mentioned as obstacles to a more open approach to innovation. Newcomers and smaller organizations speak more in terms of synergy and describe the added value of opening up and working together to be able to face the future with confidence. In this article, this rather stereotypical conceptualization of collaboration in innovation is put in a critical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital platforms enable new forms of business models with the potential to disrupt and transform many industries. However, the impact of a platform’s market entry on incumbents has not been taken into account. In this article, our objective is to provide evidence of the impact that a platform’s market entry could have on incumbents. We proposed several hypotheses based on a literature review and then evaluated them using a large dataset from the taxi industry in New York City. Our analysis showed several changes after a platform’s market entry. In contrast to previous understanding, the results indicate that the winner-takes-it-all-effect does not generally apply to the competition between new platforms and incumbents. Regarding the date of changes following a platform’s market entry, we observed a chicken-or-egg problem in the competition between a platform and incumbents. Consequently, our results indicate that incumbents have at least one year to react to the market entry and to make adjustments.