圣加仑大学

Addressing environmental grand challenges such as resource scarcity requires circular business model innovation (CBMI) that enables firms to efficiently close and slow resource cycles through novel activity systems. Drawing on a grounded theory approach based on 59 in-depth interviews with top managers from Swiss SMEs, we developed a process model that explains how cognitive and behavioral managerial antecedents interact to drive CBMI. Anchored in dynamic capability (DC) theory, the model conceptualizes CBMI as a three-phase process and identifies six key managerial antecedents. We show how perceived environmental embeddedness and collaborative ideation support the sensing of circular opportunities, how foresighted thrift and cultivating organizational change enable the seizing of resources, and how enduring commitment and continuous experimentation drive business model reconfiguration. We contribute to the CBMI literature by advancing a processual understanding of managerial agency and applying DC theory to explicate the cognitive-behavioral dynamics through which DCs are activated and sustained.

People with disabilities (PWD) often face barriers to inclusion at work. To tackle this challenge, past research focused on the role of organizations to create more inclusive workplaces. What remains understudied, however, is the role that PWD often take themselves in shaping their inclusion experiences. In this paper, we take a co-constructionist perspective on inclusion and study disability voice as PWDs' self-inclusion efforts with which they claim inclusion at work through speaking out about their disability-related needs, concerns, and ideas. Using mixed methods, we explore disability voice as a construct and study how it affects the inclusion experiences of PWD in three studies. In Study 1, we draw on 50 interviews with PWD in Germany and in Switzerland and identify seven facets of disability voice. In Study 2, we build on our findings from the first study and develop a disability voice scale. In Study 3, we analyze a sample of 676 PWD across two measurement waves to test a theoretical model examining the relationship between disability voice and PWDs' inclusion perceptions, as well as disability visibility as a potential boundary condition. We find that disability voice is positively related to PWDs' perceptions of opportunity for authenticity and belongingness. However, disability visibility did not significantly moderate these relationships. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Research summary Entrepreneurship unfolds under uncertainty, which complicates entrepreneurs' efforts to align idea, action, and environment to reach product-market fit. To illuminate how entrepreneurs perform such alignment, we complement the theory-based view and its focus on cognitive uncertainty with a discussion of behavioral uncertainty. We propose that entrepreneurs face four types of uncertainty: (1) uncertainty about the state of their environment (state uncertainty), (2) uncertainty about the interpretation of environmental cues (perception uncertainty), (3) uncertainty about the feasibility of turning an idea into a tangible product (execution uncertainty), and (4) uncertainty about the effect of their action in the environment (effect uncertainty). To mitigate these forms of uncertainty, entrepreneurs engage in idea-environment (entrepreneurs as visionaries), idea-action (entrepreneurs as engineers), and action-environment (entrepreneurs as experimenters) alignment. Each of these alignment strategies is associated with benefits and constraints in mitigating the uncertainty discussed. Our paper thus generates new insights into the nature of uncertainty and its effective mitigation in the quest for product-market fit, a critical precursor of success in entrepreneurship.Managerial summary Entrepreneurship succeeds when product and market are aligned. We map two sources of uncertainty that stand in the way of reaching product-market fit. Agentic uncertainty concerns the entrepreneur: interpreting signals (perception uncertainty) and making the idea work (execution uncertainty). Environmental uncertainty concerns the market: what state the market is in (state uncertainty) and how the market will react to products (effect uncertainty). Entrepreneurs can mitigate these uncertainties via three complementary strategies: (1) idea-environment alignment ("visionary" scanning the environment), (2) idea-action alignment ("engineering" to prove feasibility), and (3) action-environment alignment ("experimenter" testing to learn what sells). Each alignment strategy yields benefits and costs toward reaching product-market fit. In combination, they accelerate product-market fit-a critical driver of success in entrepreneurship.

Research shows that users are more likely to engage with brand communication on social media when posts feature images of people, animals, or objects in motion. We argue that a comprehensive account of implied motion must also consider motion density-the number of distinct actions depicted within an image. A content analysis of 7,142 Instagram posts from 100 global brands reveals that posts receive more likes when they contain images depicting a single action, compared to multiple actions. A follow-up experimental study (N = 503) explains this effect. Images with multiple actions are perceived as messier and more difficult to process, ultimately reducing user interaction. Our research advances advertising literature by showing that audience responses depend not only on the presence of motion but also on how many actions are depicted. Practically, single-action (vs. multiple action) images elicit more user interaction, indicating that simpler visuals outperform more complex ones.

Foreign policy making involves balancing ethical values and instrumental concerns. Do politicians and citizens differ in how they weigh these factors when directly confronted with this trade-off? Focusing on attitudes toward arms exports, we argue that citizens, but not politicians, tend to prioritize human rights concerns over the political and economic benefits for their own states. We tested these arguments in four survey experiments among citizens and parliamentarians in the United Kingdom and Germany. We presented participants with fictitious arms deals and varied the human rights records of recipient regimes as well as the benefits of arms deals to assess how these factors influence attitudes toward arms exports. While we find substantial effects of both human rights violations and benefits on support for arms exports, their interaction remains insignificant across all samples. Hence, our findings yield no evidence for an elite-public gap in weighing ethical and instrumental concerns in foreign policy attitudes.