Month: February 2024

Ildikó Furka will present her paper “Exploring the cultural value orientation of a higher education institution – a case study” on March 4th at 10:30 AM, room QA405.

Abstract:   

The number of international students has increased dramatically at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) up to 12% of the student body as a result of internationalization in the past years (Molnár, 2021). The Centre for Modern Languages has been in contact with a significant number of them either in English for Academic Purposes courses, in Hungarian Language courses, or through the regularly offered courses. This unique insight was consulted when the university Student Career Path Programme (HÉP) carried out a survey on communication habits among international students (n=186), their instructors (n=90), and some of the administrative staff (n=19) to find what reasons might be at the root of misunderstandings. The open-ended question responses prompted the opportunity for a content analysis within the cultural value orientations framework (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010; Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1995; Hall, 1976), cross-cultural linguistic analysis (Hinds, 1987), and cross-cultural rhetoric (Kaplan, 1966; Gillet, 1989). Having triangulated the results with value orientation data on Hungary found in the literature (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010; Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997; Falk Bánó 2014, Bakacsi et al 2002; Hajnal, Kádár & Kovács, 2018) and on cultural differences among educational systems (Loh & Teo, 2017; Hecht & Kahrens, 2021), a cultural profile might emerge where BME is an organization that has a value system of high power distance, high-context communication, reader-responsibility (Hinds, 1987), and a tendency towards individualism, masculinity, monochronic time management, and achievement orientation. The profile can be used to make recommendations for international students and their instructors on how to manage their interactions and adjust their teaching and learning styles, as well as to help higher education management to review their organisational practices and processes.

Noemie Cabau  (Co-author: Arseniy Samsonov) will present their paper “Signaling Effort: Information Structures in a Principal-Agent model” on February 19th at 10:00 AM, room QA405.

Abstract:   

We propose a principal-agent model with moral hazard and non-contractible output where the agent can design a signal about his effort. If there is no signal besides the agent’s, the latter appropriates the first best surplus in every equilibrium. If there is an external signal, the principal can offer a default contract conditioned on it. The agent’s incentive to provide further information stems from the trade-off between lowering the expected punishment and decreasing the expected reward. We show that the agent’s equilibrium signal is informative if he faces a severe and likely punishment under the default contract. We find that the agent benefits from correlating his signal to the outside one and that a more precise external signal may not benefit the principal.

Daniel Rehsmann  (University of Vienna) will present his paper “Contesting Fake News” on February 7th at 10:30 AM, room QA406.

Abstract:   

We model competition on a credence goods market governed by an imperfect label, signaling high quality, as a rank-order tournament between firms.  In this market interaction, asymmetric firms jointly and competitively control the underlying quality ranking’s precision or verifiability by releasing individual information.  While the labels and the information they are based on can be seen as a public good guiding the consumers’ purchasing decisions, individual firms have incentives to strategically amplify or counteract the competitors’ information emission, thereby manipulating the label’s (or ranking’s) discriminatory power.  Elements of the introduced theory are applicable to several (credence-good) industries which employ labels or rankings, including academic departments, books, music, and investment opportunities.