Human capital and sustainable competitive advantage: an analysis of the relationship between training and performance

This article analyses the importance of training as a creator of human capital, which enables a company to obtain competitive advantages that are sustainable in the long-term that result in greater profitability. The study is based on the general theoretical framework of resource and capacity theory. The study not only analyses the impact of the influence of training on performance; it also attempts to analyse the nature of such a relationship in greater depth. This being the case, an attempt has been made to measure explanatory capacity from two different perspectives: the universalistic approach and the contingent approach. At the outset, two hypotheses are formulated that attempt to quantify the relationship from a universalistic perspective to later, in two more hypotheses, incorporate the potential moderating effect of the strategy into the model, in order to verify whether or not this strategy improves the explanatory power of our model of analysis.

The State in Court: the economic effects of fee-shifting rules in Spain when suing the government

Following the recent public debate concerning the situation of the Judicial system in Spain, the paper analyses the special position of the State in Court, essentially with reference to suits brought by individuals against the State before Spanish first instance Courts, although international Courts are touched as well. The analysis focuses on the incentives to litigate and to settle in a dispute with the State, focusing on the State’s special procedural rules and the fee-shifting rules applied in the Spanish Justice system. The asymmetries in favor of the State reduce the incentives to litigate against the State, but also reduce the settlement range in order to achieve out-of-Court settlements.     

Determinants of domestic and cross-border bank acquisitions in the European Union

This paper analyzes the determinants of bank acquisitions both within and across countries in the EU-25 over the period 1997–2004. Our results suggest poorly managed banks (high cost to income) and larger banks are more likely to be acquired by other banks in the same country. The probability of being a target in a cross-border deal is larger for banks that are quoted in the stock market. Finally, banks operating in more concentrated markets are less likely to be acquired by other banks in the same country but are more likely to be acquired by banks in other EU-25 countries.     

Robust implementation under alternative information structures

In this paper we consider a model in which agents have complete information about their neighbors and, possibly, incomplete information about the rest of the environment. We consider two different informational frameworks. In the first, agents do not have priors about the relevant characteristics in the rest of the environment. In the second, agents are supposed to have priors about the unknown characteristics. We present a mechanism which implements any social choice correspondence satisfying monotonicity and no veto power in both informational settings for every possible prior thus requiring little knowledge from the point of view of the designer of the information possessed by agents about the environment. The authors wish to thank J. Canals, B. Chakravorty, P. Chander, C. Herrero, G. Orosel, D. Schmeidler, W. Thomson, W. Trockel, F. Vega, A. Villar, T. Yamato and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies. The first author acknowledges financial support from the Institució Valenciana d’Estudies i Investigació; L.V.I.E. and DGICYT under projects PB/88-0289 and PB/91-0756. The second author acknowledges financial support from DGICYT under project PB/90-0156. A previous version of the paper was written when authors visited (May 1991) the Institute of Mathematical Economics (Bielefeld) to which authors are grateful.     

Combining Probability Distributions by Multiplication in Metrology: A Viable Method?

In measurement science quite often the value of a so‐called ‘output quantity’ is inferred from information about ‘input quantities’ with the help of the ‘mathematical model of measurement’. The latter represents the functional relation through which outputs and inputs depend on one another. However, subsets of functionally independent quantities can always be so defined that they suffice to express the entire information available. Reporting information in terms of such a subset may in certain circumstances require aggregating probability distributions whose arguments are interrelated quantities. The option of aggregating by multiplication of distributions is shown to be susceptible of yielding inconsistent results when the roles of inputs and outputs are assigned differently to the quantities. Two alternatives to this practice that do not give rise to such discrepancies are discussed, namely (i) logarithmic pooling with weights summing to one and (ii) linear pooling, of which the former appears to be slightly more favourable for applications in metrology. An example illustrates the inconsistency of results obtained by distinct ways of multiplying distributions and the manner in which these results differ from a logarithmically pooled distribution.     

Systemic risk measures: The simpler the better?

This paper estimates and compares two groups of high-frequency market-based systemic risk measures using European and US interbank rates, stock prices and credit derivatives data from 2004 to 2009. Measures belonging to the macro group gauge the overall tension in the financial sector and micro group measures rely on individual institution information to extract joint distress. We rank the measures using three criteria: (i) Granger causality tests, (ii) Gonzalo and Granger metric, and (iii) correlation with an index of systemic events and policy actions. We find that the best systemic measure in the macro group is the first principal component of a portfolio of Credit Default Swap (CDS) spreads whereas the best measure in the micro group is the multivariate densities computed from CDS spreads. These results suggest that the measures based on CDSs outperform measures based on interbank rates or stock market prices.     

Neoliberal and neostructuralist perspectives on labour flexibility,poverty and inequality: A critical appraisal

Numerous recent reports by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), academics and international organisations have focused on so-called ‘climate refugees’. This article examines the turn from a discourse of ‘climate refugees’, in which organisations perceive migration as a failure of both mitigation and adaptation to climate change, to one of ‘climate migration’, in which organisations promote migration as a strategy of adaptation. Its focus is the promotion of climate migration management, and it explores the trend of these discourses through two sections. First, it provides an empirical account of the two discourses, emphasising the differentiation between them. It then focuses on the discourse of climate migration, its origins, extent and content, and the associated practices of ‘migration management’. The second part argues that the turn to the promotion of ‘climate migration’ should be understood as a way to manage the insecurity created by climate change. However, international organisations enacts this management within the forms of neoliberal capitalism, including the framework of governance. Therefore, the promotion of ‘climate migration’ as a strategy of adaptation to climate change is located within the tendencies of neoliberalism and the reconfiguration of southern states' sovereignty through governance.     

Distribution Channel Relationships: The Conditions and Strategic Outcomes of Cooperation between Manufacturer and Distributor

The purpose of this paper is to carry out an empirical examination of the antecedents of cooperation between manufacturer and distributor. A further objective is to study the levels of satisfaction with the strategic outcomes of such cooperation. We analyze the extent to which cooperation requires not only complementary resources and capabilities of the partners but also goal congruence, trust and relational norms. Cooperation between manufacturer and distributor also involves reciprocal commitment and joint investment in specific assets. Finally, manufacturers and distributors should not only gain satisfaction from the economic, psychological or social benefits of cooperation, but should also gain competitive advantage, profits and strategic outcomes that help to compete in the market more efficiently.     

A mediation model between dimensions of social capital

Our paper contributes to the growing research by examining the interrelations between the dimensions of capital and their effects on the international market share of multinational companies in the global contractors industry. Previous works on social capital have failed to study the interrelationships between its dimensions or have proposed models with direct relationships. The current study proposes a multiple mediating model and tests the mediation. In particular, we posit that the relational and resource dimensions play a mediating role in the structural dimension-international market share relationship. A variance-based structural equation modeling (Partial Least Squares) has been applied to a sample made up of 225 global contractors. Our analysis lends support to the importance of the central positions of a firm and their influence on international market share. Moreover, mediation hypotheses posit how the relational and resource dimensions play a critical mediating role in the structural dimension – international market share relationship. Analysis of the data suggest that the dimensions of social capital are interrelated in such a way that the relational and resource dimensions: (a) fully mediate the effect of centrality (structural dimension) on the international share market and (b) exert significant influence on the international market share of each company.     

How to create information management capabilities through web 2.0

Over the last two decades investment in information technologies (IT) has been sufficiently high to be considered economically relevant. However, it has not been easy to prove that there are positive effects of these investments on organisational performance. This study questions the validity of directly relating web 2.0 initiatives to firm performance without taking into consideration other complementary assets such as managerial skills in IT, organisational restructuring and a culture of change. If these factors are not present, IT may not in fact produce any benefits whatsoever. The authors approach this problem using the resource-based view and propose the construct information management capability as a measure to gather the integration of the various co-specialised and complementary capabilities, whether technological or human and organisational, necessary in order to obtain competitive advantages in information use. A scale is created to measure this construct, the reliability and validity of which are demonstrated.