Unemployment and Migration: Does Moving Help?

The migration behaviour of the unemployed in Finland is analysed in terms of the causal effect of moving on individual employment status. In 1994, 17 percent of the labour force was unemployed and the unemployment rate exhibited a very slow decline in 1994–1996. Over half of those who were unemployed at the end of 1994 were still unemployed two years later. The propensity to find a job is somewhat greater among migrants. However, the positive effect of moving diminishes once other personal characteristics are accounted for. Moreover, when controlling for endogenous migrant selectivity, an insignificant or even negative effect on employment status emerges. This indicates that the relatively better "quality" of the migrants (e.g. age, education, human capital and unobserved ability), rather than the act of moving itself, causes an improvement in re–employability. Hence, migration alone may not be a very effective mechanism for alleviating individual unemployment.
JEL classification : J 61; J 64     

Narrative approach in business network process research — Implications for theory and methodology

The continuous development of theoretical and methodological approaches provides novel insights into how to conceptualize and empirically study multilayered and multi-actor network processes. This theoretic-methodological article shows how network processes can be conceptualized, and how the narrative approach advances the empirical study of these processes. The study builds an agency-structure meta-framework that conceptualizes the emergence of network processes in terms of interaction between individuals from different network actor organizations. The narrative research approach is put forward to implement the study of network processes into empirical reality. The narrative approach allows capturing the relevant actors, their multiple motives, interests and activities, and the mutual interplay of these elements with the contextual levels, thus providing an essential understanding of various types of network processes.     

Measurement of power,probabilities, and alternative models of man

Starting from Max Weber’s definitions of power we discuss the meaning of his concept Chance and its relationships to the probabilistic notions that play a central role in definitions of indices of measuring voting power. Using Martin Hollis’s distinction between two models of man—plastic and autonomous—we argue that the common measures of voting power when interpreted in terms of probabilities seem to be in better conformity with the model of plastic man than with the model of autonomous man. The paper elaborates on the probability interpretation with applications to the modelling of power measures with a priori unions and to the concept of “real voting power” based on relative frequencies of historical events. Power as potential—which in our view is what Weber very likely meant—remains an elusive concept, but one that should be amenable to game-theoretic analysis.     

Are Legal Families Related to Financial Reporting Quality?

A large body of financial accounting research explores the quality of accounting in different countries. An important assumption in most of that research is that common law provides a firmer foundation for good accounting transparency than civil law. Researchers usually regress their proxy for accounting quality on an indicator variable that designates the firm's country as a common or civil law jurisdiction (along with other regressors). But what is the support for that nearly universal assumption? This study addresses that question. It traces the distinctions made by legal scholars that characterize the two ‘families’. It analyzes La Porta et al. (1998), which is the nearly universal citation to support the civil/common dummy, and assesses the design and development of research designs that use law in accounting studies. It concludes that the use of the civil/common distinction as applied in accounting studies cannot be supported, and offers suggestions for how to better investigate the ways in which the law interacts with financial reporting.     

A 2.4-GHz ISM RF and UWB hybrid RFID real-time locating system for industrial enterprise Internet of Things

This paper presents a 2.4-GHz radio frequency (RF) and ultra-wide bandwidth (UWB) hybrid real-time locating system (RTLS) for industrial enterprise Internet of Things (IoT). It employs asymmetric wireless link, that is, UWB radio is utilised for accurate positioning up to 10 cm in critical sites, whereas 2.4-GHz RF is used for tag control and coarse positioning in non-critical sites. The specified communication protocol and the adaptive tag synchronisation rate ensure reliable and deterministic access with a scalable system capacity and avoid unpredictable latency and additional energy consumption of retransmissions due to collisions. The tag, consisting of a commercial 2.4-GHz transceiver and a customised application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) UWB transmitter (Tx), is able to achieve up to 3 years’ battery life at 1600 tags per position update second with 1000 mAh battery in one cluster. The time difference of arrival (TDoA)–based positioning experiment at UWB radio is performed on the designed software-defined radio (SDR) platform.     

Omni-channel retailing: propositions,examples and solutions

Customers are not passive agents, but intrinsic to the value creation process. Because retailers are the customer’s link to the marketplace they are uniquely placed to develop value co-creation opportunities that give themselves a strategic advantage. Omni-channel retailing is a means to create an advantage by forging deeper customer relationships and potentially developing new markets. Omni-channel retailing can appeal to the heterogeneity in customers’ shopping orientations with the aim of providing a seamless cross-channel experience. However, without a clear strategic purpose, omni-channel initiatives can easily result in unbeneficial – or worse, counterproductive – investments. To address this, the purpose of this paper is to formulate guiding principles to facilitate decision-making with respect to developing an omni-channel marketing strategy. Consequently, two complementary research streams are presented. The first pertains to strategic considerations regarding omni-channel retailing; the second pertains to value co-creation as seen through a service-dominant logic lens. These research streams are then linked to derive five propositions– along with examples and solutions – to assist retailing decision-makers when developing an omni-channel marketing strategy. These propositions underline the importance of viewing channels as value-facilitating resources that should be aligned with the customer’s decision journey.     

Strategies as Discursive Constructions: The Case of Airline Alliances

ABSTRACT In this paper, we argue that by examining the discursive elements in strategy talk we can contribute to our understanding of the myriad of micro‐processes and practices that make up strategies. We focus on airline alliances as a particularly illustrative case. Based on a critical discourse analysis of an extensive material of strategy talk on airline alliances, we point to five types of discursive practices that characterize strategizing in this context in 1995–2000: (1) problematization of traditional strategies; (2) rationalization, objectification and factualization of alliance benefits; (3) fixation of ambiguous independence concerns; (4) reframing of cooperation problems as ‘implementation’ issues; and (5) naturalization of alliance strategies. While we want to emphasize the context‐specificity of these practices, we claim that similar types of discursive practices are also likely to be an inherent part of strategizing in other settings.     

Assessing Contestability of Electoral Outcomes

This article applies Saaris geometric methodology to assess how muchdifference the choice of a particular positional voting procedure makeson the election outcomes. The British 2001 parliamentary elections are usedas an illustration of the methodology. The election results as well as MORIinterview data are used to make inferences regarding the possibility ofthe Borda effect. Saaris geometricrepresentation technique is resorted to in describing all possiblepositional voting outcomes in single-member constituencies where threecandidates are competing. Finally, two basic winning criteria are discussed.     

Exchange rates in the short run: Some further results

This note extends our earlier results [published in this Journal. Vol. 10 (1977)] on the dollar DM exchange rate to the 1977–78 period. The original equation estimated on 1971–76 data overpredicts the dollar value of the DM during most of 1978. Thus the rise of the DM in the second half of 1978 was consistent with the ‘fundamentals’ equation. We also show that a net foriegn liability position may destabilize the foreign exchange market and that this may have been empirically significant for the dollar DM rate in 1973–74.     

Consumer-to-consumer e-commerce: outcomes and implications

Abstract

One outcome of the digitised retail environment is the emergence of consumer-to-consumer (C2C) electronic commerce. Existing research has extensively addressed C2C commerce in an offline environment, while relatively little is known about online C2C behaviour. Thus, there is a need to deepen the understanding of how and why consumers engage in C2C e-commerce as well as the implications that C2C e-commerce holds for retailers. To address this gap, a comprehensive survey targeting Finnish consumers was conducted. The survey yielded a total of 2823 respondents who had transacted on C2C e-commerce platforms. The data are used to profile C2C e-commerce with demographics, product categories, customer value and key retail outcomes. This analysis provides a well-grounded basis for discussing the implications of C2C e-commerce for retailers.