Responses to monetary policy shocks in the east and the west of Europe: a comparison

This paper compares impulse responses to monetary policy shocks in the euro area countries before the EMU and in the New Member States (NMS) from central–eastern Europe. We mitigate the small‐sample problem, which is especially acute for the NMS, by using a Bayesian estimation that combines information across countries. The impulse responses in the NMS are broadly similar to those in the euro area countries. There is some evidence that in the NMS, which have had higher and more volatile inflation, the Phillips curve is steeper than in the euro area countries. This finding is consistent with economic theory. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Beyond bureaucracy? Work organization in call centres

Call centres are a rapidly growing, IT-based channel for service and sales delivery, particularly in the financial services and telecom industries. Although little research has been undertaken on the human resource aspects of call centres, two contrasting images are emerging. The first emphasizes the bureaucratic, constraining nature of these work settings, while the second image points towards worker empowerment characteristic of knowledge-intensive settings. Which of these two images more faithfully portrays the nature of work organization in call centres is the subject of our paper. Drawing on qualitative research undertaken in six call centres and a survey of front-line workers, we show that elements of both models coexist and that a hybrid model predominates. The theoretical basis for this contention, and its institutionalization as mass customized bureaucracy, lies in management's on-going attempts to reconcile two conflicting principles: standardization of processes and customization of products. The paper also explores, as key consequences of mass customized bureaucracy, front-line workers' satisfaction with various facets of their job and their overall job satisfaction, in addition to discretionary work effort. Only in relation to job security and co-worker relations could front-line workers be considered satisfied. Overall, these employees were ambivalent in their responses. They were however more likely to give more discretionary work effort than indicated by their extent of satisfaction. We conclude that, although the existing pattern of work organization may be superior to more bureaucratic forms, it is by no means ideal from the standpoint of either front-line workers or management.     

Labour reform in a neo-liberal ‘protected’ democracy: Chile 1990–2001

This paper analyses the direction and degree of labour reform in Chile since the restoration of democracy in 1990 after seventeen years of military dictatorship. The regime of General Augusto Pinochet (1973–90) adopted a highly repressive political character and implemented neo-liberal economic policies, which, together with the institutional restructuring that accompanied them, transformed vast sectors of Chilean society. The 1979 Labour Plan significantly changed the character of industrial relations legislation and the roles and balance of power among social actors, transforming the way in which industrial relations had been conducted since the 1920s. We argue that, despite more than a decade since the restoration of democracy, and after several rounds of reform, the current legislation presents remarkable continuity with the one enacted under authoritarianism, contradicting claims that profound change has been achieved. In attempting to explain the direction and degree of the so-called Transition's Labour Reforms, we emphasize the importance of political-economy approaches. We explore the conservative nature of the Chilean transition to democracy, the continuity of the neo-liberal economic model and the increasing imbalance of power between capital and labour, in an effort to account for the persistence of the authoritarian legacy in today's Chilean industrial relations.     

Firms as source of variety in innovation: influence of size and sector

This article seeks to fulfill two main objectives. It firstly seeks to identify and quantify characteristics and behaviors of firms that are associated with what, in the evolutionary stream, is known as variety in innovation. A factor analysis is applied with a view to establishing, from a sizeable group of variables related to business innovation, the main factors or sources of variety in innovation in firms. The second goal is to estimate the influence of two variables that have been traditionally related to innovative firm activity on each of these sources: size and sector. The results of the analysis show seven important sources of variability in innovation for firms and that the influence of size and sector of activity on innovation occurs, at different levels of intensity, through these sources. The empirical analysis is based on the responses given for managers of a representative sample of enterprises in a personal interview.     

Soft Computing Techniques for Querying XBRL Data

Availability of business data is an important aspect of effective financial activities. An easy access to financial information has immense influence on actions and decisions regarding investing, trade and operations of companies and firms. The proposed standard – eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) – provides a means to create a uniform framework for representing corporate and financial information. XBRL defines an easily interpretable, machine-readable and XML-based data format. Its flexibility allows for representing business data using different languages, as well as following different regulation standards. One of important benefits of XBRL is application of XML-based tools and systems that enable easy preparation, processing and validation of corporate data. It is also possible to use XML-based storage and query systems. In this paper we propose and describe a concept of soft queries. They provide the users with a human-friendly interface for interacting with XBRL data. These queries are equipped with linguistic terms (such as large, medium, small) and linguistic qualifiers (all, mostly). Such queries are able to provide the users with results similar to the results obtained when they analyse data themselves. Linguistic terms and qualifiers are represented as fuzzy sets. Fuzzy-based operations and aggregation operators allow for mimicking a human-like processing of data. The proposed approach is illustrated with queries executed on an XBRL document. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Uncovering the link between a flexible exchange rate and fundamentals: the case of Central and Eastern European economies

This article examines the link between a nominal exchange rate and macrofundamentals in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. We use the model based on the monetary policy rule as a theoretical framework that explains the relations between the exchange rate and price level, risk premium, output gap, and expected inflation. It allows for endogeneity of the monetary policy – the issue ignored in the widely used monetary model. The sample covers the period January 2000 – December 2014, so the data are not plagued by high-inflation differentials characteristic for the early transition period and include countries with relatively flexible exchange rates. Our empirical strategy employs the panel error correction model that allows for cross-sectional dependence and a series of panel causality tests. The main finding is that the nominal exchange rates in CEE countries are not disconnected from macrofundamentals implied by the Taylor rule-based model. More specifically, we find that there is a strong cross-sectional dependence among CEE countries, exchange rates Granger-cause macrofundamentals and tend to revert to the long-run relation, and that the results are robust to the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ argument, i.e. do not rest on the dynamics during the global financial crisis.