Network or Independent Business? Entrepreneurs' Human,Social and Financial Capital as Determinants of Mode of Entry

When establishing a new business, entrepreneurs can decide to join a network of independent business partners rather than choose the alternative of independent business ownership. In this study, we use a probit model on a large database to study the human, social, and financial capital of French entrepreneurs who join franchising and comparable forms of networks. Results confirm that initial levels of human and social capital are significant determinants of network membership. We also show that an increase in the proportion of the project financed by debt increases the probability of joining a network. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impact of completing chronic hepatitis C (CHC) treatment on post-therapy healthcare cost

Background:

Chronic hepatitis C (CHC) is associated with significant economic burden. This study evaluated the healthcare cost alleviation associated with treatment of CHC.

Methods:

Health insurance claims from 60 self-insured US companies were analyzed (01/2001–03/2012). Adult patients with ≥1 CHC diagnosis (ICD-9-CM: 070.44, 070.54), initiating interferon, and with ≥2 dispensings and with ≥48 weeks of follow-up were selected. Patients diagnosed with HIV or who completed only 24 weeks of interferon therapy (a surrogate for CHC genotypes 2 and 3) were excluded from the study. Interferon users were categorized into complete and discontinued therapy cohorts. During the post–48-week treatment period, cohorts were compared for healthcare resource utilization using rate ratios (RRs), as well as healthcare costs using per-patient per-year (PPPY) cost differences.

Results:

A total of 1017 patients who completed and 953 patients who discontinued interferon therapy were identified. Relative to the discontinued therapy cohort, the completed therapy cohort had significantly fewer hospitalizations (RR [95% CI]?=?0.74 [0.68, 0.81], p?p?p?=?0.039), which translated into significantly lower total healthcare costs PPPY (cost difference [95% CI]?=?$4540 [1570, 7680], p?=?0.004) and hospitalization costs (cost difference [95% CI]?=?$3039 [1140, 5248], p?=?0.002). Non–CHC-related costs accounted for 55% and CHC-related costs for 45% of the all-cause cost difference between cohorts.

Limitations:

Claims data may have contained inaccuracies, and genotypes of patients with CHC could not be confirmed. The study consisted of privately insured individuals and may not be generalizable to the entire CHC population.

Conclusion:

Compared to discontinued therapy patients, CHC patients who completed interferon therapy and presumably had a higher rate of achieving SVR were found to have lower levels of healthcare resource utilization and costs post-therapy. The reduction was primarily in costs associated with non–HCV-related comorbidities.     

‘Joined-Up’ Policy-Making: Group Decision and Negotiation Practice

Creating public value is problematic in a world of austerity. Joint private and public, and public-public, projects are now an established way of creating public value. Establishing joint goals within a context of different ‘own goals’ is important and difficult. A particular issue facing many organisations in seeking to negotiate joint goals in a collaborative project is that of getting all the key managers from both organisations together over enough of a sequence of meetings for agreements to be meaningful and owned by those who will deliver the project. The development of such goals can be significantly enhanced by (1) using a Group Decision Support System (GDSS) and (2) using a powerful conceptualisation of a goals framework comprising: a goals system; ‘core goals’; ‘meta-goals’; ‘negative’ goals; and ‘above and beyond’ goals. In the case of negotiating joint goals the use of a GDSS has increased productivity to such an extent that powerful negotiated agreements can be achieved with all key managers in the room in as little as one meeting. The combination of high productivity, anonymity, and the structuring of the data has also facilitated the uncovering of ‘negative goals’, and the development of ‘meta-goals’ and ‘above and beyond’ goals. This paper uses three real cases to illustrate the significance of a Group Support System’s contribution and to illustrate the different types of goals. In doing so the paper suggests that facilitating such outcomes requires a carefully designed strategic conversation necessarily supported by a GDSS to enable group decision and negotiation in practice. Two of the cases are from public-public collaboration in the health field, and the other from a private-public setting.     

Are maximizers blind to the future? When today’s best does not make for a better tomorrow

A number of studies have demonstrated that a maximizer’s tendency to settle for only the best choice option leads them to discard the past and feel dissatisfied in the present. The current study, however, investigates whether maximizers’ quests for perfection blinds them toward the future. A study of 522 respondents drawn from a probabilistic sample of the US population examines a series of hypotheses related to how a maximizer views the future. Consistent with the resource slack theory (i.e., the overestimation of the amount of time that will be available in the future), maximization tendencies diminish the consumer’s ability to look ahead to the future, both directly and indirectly, through the intervening roles of both regret and polychronicity (i.e., multitasking). Maximizers do not estimate future task demand accurately as they associate strong feelings of regret with their previous choices and dismiss them as poor decisions. Additionally, low polychronicity hinders their capacity to set aside sufficient time resources to be devoted to future tasks when engrossed in a current task. Implications for managers and researchers are discussed before concluding with further research avenues and limitations.     

Workers’ tenure and firm productivity: New evidence from matched employer-employee panel data

Using rich longitudinal matched employer-employee data on Belgian firms, we explore the impact of workers’ tenure on firm productivity. To do so, we estimate production functions augmented with firm-level measures of tenure. We deal with the endogeneity of standard inputs and tenure, which arises from unobserved firm heterogeneity and reverse causality, by applying a modified version of Ackerberg et al.’s (2015) control function method, which explicitly removes firm fixed effects. Consistently with recent theoretical predictions, our analyses point to positive, but decreasing, returns to tenure. We also find that the impact differs widely across several firm dimensions. Tenure is particularly beneficial for productivity in contexts characterized by a certain degree of routineness and low job complexity. Along the same lines, our findings indicate that tenure exerts stronger positive impacts in industrial and capital-intensive firms, as well as in firms less reliant on ICT-intensive and knowledge-intensive processes.     

COLLECTIVELY GARDENING THE URBAN PUBLIC SPACE IN MEXICO CITY: When Informal Practices Interact with the State

In recent years, a growing number of citizen-led gardens have appeared in the urban public spaces of large cities across the world. While many of these projects are initially launched informally without any support from the state, they gradually become integrated into the social fabric of the city. To understand the evolution of the formal–informal boundaries of the practice, we argue that we should be paying attention to the specific institutional contexts that frame gardeners’ interactions with public authorities. Drawing from a study of citizen-led gardens in Mexico City, we show that informal urban gardening becomes a disconnected-from-the-state practice. On the one hand, the Mexico City government has shown a growing interest in regulating urban agriculture. On the other hand, gardeners are increasingly trying to find their own ways to formalize and perennate their practice. We suggest that this disconnection between gardeners and the state is best explained by the weakness of the institutional context in which their interactions take place. A top-down policymaking process, along with the incapacity and unwillingness of the multi-leveled city government to implement policies effectively, reinforces norms of mistrust and generates low expectations among gardeners as they interact with local authorities.     

Empowering health care consumers in the era of Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is emerging as a significant development in information technology that aims to link the digital world with the real world to improve human life. IoT refers to digital tools collecting data and providing hyper-personalized information to its users. With the rapid integration of the IoT in the healthcare sector (HIoT), it has been presumed that HIoT devices have an empowering effect on patients; however, this has yet to be investigated. Furthermore, the literature reveals a lack of consistency regarding the definition of patient empowerment. This study aims to fill these gaps and investigates whether HIoT systems increase user empowerment for individuals suffering from chronic illnesses. It also examines how empowerment is defined for HIoT users. To answer these two research questions, we conducted a qualitative research study consisting of 20 semi-structured, in-depth interviews carried out with individuals suffering from Type 1 diabetes (T1D). The interviews were transcribed and content analysis was conducted on the data. The study enabled us to examine whether and how the HIoT triggered empowerment for patients suffering from T1D. Findings reveal four main dimensions of empowerment for HIoT users: (1) self-efficacy, (2) patient control, (3) knowledge development and (4) participation in the decision-making process along with the doctor. Results also highlight that participants feel empowered by personal acceptance of living with their health condition and social support. In addition, the analysis led to the identification of the barriers which need to be overcome to ensure that HloT systems improve patient empowerment.