Routine action', a form to take action, is widely accepted in the economic field, because of its resource saving effect which contributes to average cost degression. However, from an entropic point of view, each form of acting requires decision making in regard to consumption of resources and...

Achieving and sustaining growth depends on the effective work of multiple and interconnected actors—such as e.g. governments, the private sector, society, universities, entrepreneurs and many others—who build an ecosystem, i.e. a social and economic environment for innovative and...

Recent studies of outlaw communities provide qualitative evidence of their existence and the organisation of the underlying innovation processes. We provide descriptive results from a large scale survey of two online outlaw communities focussing on Microsoft's XBox. In line with previous...

Personnel economics is a rather young academic (sub-)discipline that applies (micro) economic methodology and insights to the personnel function of companies. It is scientifically fertile and complementary to other disciplinary approaches to personnel issues. Instead of that, an approach without...

An increasing number of companies, in order to improve their competitive stance on the market, decide to outsource some of their service functions to external subjects. Outsourcing of this type of activity is frequently regarded as a strategic decision. A properly conducted outsourcing project...

Within firms diverse fields of action are regarding the transformation of material and immaterial resources. The dimension of choices is being determined by the basic laws of thermodynamics. The entropic relevance of action within a firm has been considered by the paper. From a social system...

This study investigates what creates value for customers and how providers canimprove value for their customers. A comprehensive analytical model with a fourstepapproach is presented and applied in the field of financial services. In a firststep, the main customer value drivers are identified...

Fundamental changes in the market environment force insurance intermediaries to redefinetheir roles. This article focuses on the future functions of brokers, which areanalyzed from a functional as well as a customer-oriented perspective. To cope withthe limitations of current intermediation...

Is pricing of ICT-intense offerings following classical paths of pricing, or are they losing ground? Is pricing in telecom based on costing, customer value or something else? Who participates in creating the offerings that meet the end customers? And how is revenue distributed among...

An increasing number of companies, in order to improve their competitive stance on the market, decide to outsource some of their service functions to external subjects. Outsourcing of this type of activity is frequently regarded as a strategic decision. A properly conducted outsourcing project...