Severin Friedrich Bischof

The Peril of Surprises: How Risk Influences Attitude Towards Product Subscription Models

Subscription commerce emerged as an up-and-coming phenomenon in retailing that enables shoppers to automatically receive recurring deliveries of consumer goods. One important dimension along which subscription services differ is the degree to which the content of each delivery is surprising. This paper focuses on two archetypes at opposite ends of this dimension, namely predefined and curated surprise subscriptions, and juxtaposes them to conceptualize surprise as a retail mechanism. It is hypothesized that curated surprise subscriptions carry an inherent risk to receive unappealing products, as consumers outsource the decision-making process to the subscription provider, which can influence consumers’ choices and attitudes. Three studies explore the role of risk perception in consumers’ evaluation of consumer goods subscriptions. First, it was found that consumers prefer shorter delivery intervals for predefined subscriptions and longer delivery intervals for curated surprise subscriptions, in line with Prospect Theory. Second, empirical evidence for perceived risk as a mediating variable in this relation is provided. Finally, it is shown how retailers can manipulate associated risk through the introduction of a free-return option. The article is concluded by introducing a new typology of subscription services and discussing implications for managerial practice as well as avenues for future research.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder: How Corruption Distance Affects R&D Investment Flows

Prior research has demonstrated that corruption has largely negative effects on incoming international investments. What is less clear, however, is to what extent these negative effects are a product not of a host country’s absolute level of corruption, but of the relative distance to the home country’s degree of corruption. We define the Directional Corruption Distance (DCD) as the arithmetic difference between two countries’ corruption levels. Avoiding distorted FDI measures, we analyze Research & Development Inflows (RDIF), as they represent critical MNE activities. Our RDIF dataset portrays all published R&D centers of 500 technology-intensive MNCs taken from the Fortune 1000 list. In accordance with previous research employing FDI as a dependent variable, we observe that RDIF flows towards countries of lower corruption (Trading Up Hypothesis). We further show that developed countries with lower degrees of corruption tend to prefer investments in other low- corruption countries (Comfort Hypothesis). High-corruption countries, conversely, do not exhibit this behavior and appear more open towards RDIF in high-corruption countries (Familiarity Hypothesis). These findings underscore the influence of contextualizing variables in the origin of investments, and suggest extended research using firm-level field data to compensate for potential bias and flaws in FDI data.

Switzerland: Brain Research and the Law

Many of the so far discussed methods of neurosciences have not yet reached a state in which they can be taken as reliable. Thus, the discussion on their application is still at a very early stage. However, it is the task of law to provide a legal compass showing the direction in which new technical developments have to be measured. In this context, one should not only see the risks of neuroscientific developments, but also bear in mind the new opportunities and chances.