Relations for product moments and covariances of <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>th records from discrete distributions

The aim of this paper is to establish recurrence relations satisfied by product moments and covariances of kth records arising from discrete distributions. They will be evaluated for geometric underlying distribution. Then we use these results to obtain formulas for correlation coefficients of geometric kth records. We consider all three known types of kth records: strong, ordinary, and weak.     

Depositors Discipline through Interest Costs during Good and Bad Times: the Role of the Guarantor of Last Resort<Superscript>1</Superscript>

We investigate whether the public sector’s ability as the guarantor of last resort (GLR) to help banks or to guarantee banks’ liabilities affects the sensitivity of interest costs to bank fundamentals. We use a global bank sample and find that the sensitivity is an increasing function of GLR risk, regardless of the method applied to describe this risk. Therefore, our results indicate that increased levels of GLR risk might foster market monitoring by depositors.     

Public provisions of professional services

Professional services are credence goods provided by certified experts (professionals). The most prominent examples of professional services are medical or legal services. Interestingly, the markets for such services are often subject to partial public provision: there is a low-end segment, where the services of basic quality are provided for free and professionals are reimbursed by the government, and a high-end segment, where free-market principles prevail. We examine the efficiency of this market structure. To this end we apply a modified version of the model of the market for goods with credence attributes proposed by Baron. We demonstrate that partial public provision can correct for the market failure caused by the credence good nature of professional services, even in the presence of regulation costs. The efficiency gain from partial public provision is due to a combination of quality and price effects.     

Strategic and environmental determinants of HRM innovations in post-socialist Poland

In the last two decades, research in human resource management has increasingly focused on the strategic linkage between the activities of the human resource function and the business goals of enterprises. Most of the theoretical and empirical work in this area has focused on the US context. This paper extends this research to a non-US business environment. Specifically, we examine data from 303 state-owned, domestic private and foreign-owned Polish firms to test how strategic and environmental variables are related to the adoption of human resource innovations. This analysis suggests that business strategies, local labour markets and the presence of foreign competition are related to the complexity and extensiveness of firm-level human resource practices.     

Internationalisation choices of Polish firms during the post-socialism transition period: The role of institutional conditions at firm’s foundation

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the home country radical change of institutional conditions influences the firm-level internationalisation process understood as exporting. In particular, we aim to broaden our understanding of how changing institutional conditions affect the internationalisation process of Polish firms founded in different institutional conditions; i.e. under the communist regime (before 1990), in the transition period (1990–2003), and in the post-transition period (2004 and later). We compare and contrast in each period three crucial aspects describing the internationalisation process: time to internationalisation, direction and degree of internationalisation. We find support for the assertion that the institutional conditions at a firm’s birth influence the internationalisation paths of emerging market firms in terms of speed, direction and degree of internationalisation. Firms founded either in the transition (1990–2003), or in the post-transition phase (2004 and later) are more likely to: (1) make the decision about internationalisation earlier in their life cycle, (2) enter developed markets, and (3) achieve a higher degree of internationalisation than firms founded under the communist regime (before 1990).     

Transport Accessibility in Business Travel – a Case Study of Central and East European Cities

The objective of this study is to conduct a network analysis of the air and train connections between selected cities in Central and Eastern Europe in the context of business tourism. The selected cities are key destinations for the meeting industry in this part of Europe. The study was initiated due to the huge significance of business travel for these cities. The authors of this paper analysed the interconnections between these cities and identified the leaders of the industry in the region. This paper is also based on a case study approach and analysis relating to the cities. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

INNOVATION WITHOUT CHANGE: THE CONTRADICTION BETWEEN THEORIES-ESPOUSED AND THEORIES-IN-USE

The reforms in many of the socialist countries have caused enterprises to re-evaluate their structures to adapt to a more turbulent environment. In one industry, the canned and fresh fruit and vegetable industry in Poland, managers created a new association designed to serve the industry through long-range planning and analysis of the environment. Managers from 30 enterprises in this industry were surveyed. Counter to the design of the association, managers used the association for short-term problem solving. This study further reveals that managers believe the association should operate in this fashion. This reflects the industry's general failure to make use of the innovation and to adapt to change.