Absorptive Capacity and FDI Spillovers: Evidence from Quantile Regressions

Using Turkish firm-level data for the period 2003–2010, we look at the relationship between foreign direct investment, absorptive capacity, and spillovers at a disaggregated level, and analyze whether firms operating in different quantiles of the productivity distribution respond differently to foreign presence and changes in absorptive capacity. The results reveal that, for a given level of foreign presence, it pays to increase the absorptive capacity of firms operating in lower quantiles. When it comes to inter-industry spillovers, it is counterproductive to increase the absorptive capacity of firms already operating in higher quantiles, as this diverts resources from other productive activities.     

Psychological aspect of the training process of preschool education students

Quality & Quantity - The purpose of this study is to define the components of subjective determination of academic research training and to establish differences in the degree of subjective...     

Financial market development,global financial crisis and economic growth: evidence from developing nations

Emerging and frontier markets in Africa have witnessed various economic and financial reforms aimed at integrating the domestic markets into the global financial market to attract investment. Whether these reforms promote high economic growth remains inconclusive. The paper applies the pooled mean group estimation technique to empirically re-investigate the link between financial market development, global financial crisis, and economic growth in selected African economies. The results strongly support our hypotheses that stock market and banking sector development promotes economic growth in the selected countries. Moreover, financial crisis reduce the positive effects of both the stock market and banking sector developments on economic growth. The study suggests that both the banking sector and stock market are important to deliver the long-run economic growth that the African region desired. Moreover, effort should be made to enact policy measures that would ensure development of the stock market which has received inadequate attention.     

Ingratiating with Despotic Leaders to Gain Status: The Role of Power Distance Orientation and Self-enhancement Motive

This study adds to business ethics research by investigating how employees’ exposure to despotic leadership might influence their peer-rated workplace status, along with a mediating role of ingratiatory behavior targeted at supervisors and a moderating role of their power distance orientation and self-enhancement motive. Multisource, three-wave data from employees and their peers in Pakistani organizations reveal that exposure to despotic leaders spurs employees’ upward ingratiatory behavior, and this behavior in turn can help them attain higher status in the organization. The mediating role of upward ingratiatory behavior also is more prominent among employees with higher levels of power distance orientation and self-enhancement motive. For business ethics scholars, this study thus pinpoints a potentially dangerous pathway—featuring employees’ deliberate efforts to impress self-centered, destructive supervisors—by which despotic leadership can generate beneficial outcomes for employees but not for the organization, as well as how this process varies due to key personal characteristics.

     

Rethinking agency theory in developing countries: A case study of Pakistan

We investigate if agency theory effectively explains agency conflict in the context of a developing country namely, Pakistan. Utilising data from 26 semi-structured interviews, we found that in Pakistan, there is no variation in risk preferences of principals (minority shareholders) and agents (majority shareholders). We also found that remuneration packages and board independence are not effective tools for governing owner managers in Pakistan. Thus, policy makers must shift their focus from soft internal governance mechanisms of appropriate remuneration and board independence. We propose for a rigorous external audit function, and appointment of independent directors and external audit firms by regulator.     

Identification of MNC knowledge resources for the local market: an examination of 7-Eleven's international licensing operations

A major concern for local managers is the identification of appropriate knowledge resources for their markets. This paper looks at how local managers make decisions on whom to learn from within the multinational corporation (MNC). Learning within the MNC has traditionally been studied from a knowledge transfer perspective, that is, focusing more on the MNC's facilitation of internal knowledge flows rather than observing local initiatives in knowledge identification. Drawing on network and psychic distance literature, the paper argues that the learning behavior of local units evolves through time. Knowledge exchanges tend to occur between markets that appear to have smaller psychic distances, especially in the initial stages of local market development. The argument is developed using a multiple case study of 7-Eleven licensees.     

Ranking by competence using a fuzzy approach

New approaches in economics of education consider the concept of competence to bringing in the multidimensional feature of labour force quality. Competence includes knowledge, skills, behaviours and attitudes. Each individual suits the combination of these elements to perform a task. Thus, different combinations expectedly lead to different task performance inside an occupation. In this paper, we focus on individual heterogeneity in homogeneous job requirements context. In sequel, we establish a theorem on unit simplex that potentially provides a ranking system by competence. The system is designed under a grade of membership framework, with a technique based on fuzzy sets theory. Under certain conditions, the referred theorem allows a mapping of individual multidimensional feature into the interval [0, 1]. So, the greater the value along this interval, the more competent the individual. An empirical study of a banking sector activity illustrates our research.     

Productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment: evidence from Turkish micro-level data

This paper analyzes the productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI) using Turkish firm-level data for a more recent time period, 2003–2010, which coincides with significant FDI inflows both in manufacturing and service sectors in the region. The empirical model is derived from endogenous growth theory whereby the rate of technological progress is partly determined by technology transfers and spillovers from international contacts, our exclusive focus being on FDI-induced spillovers. The impact of FDI onto the firm-level productivity is evaluated via the channels of horizontal and vertical linkages. The empirical results show that horizontal linkages decrease the productivity of firms, whereas vertical linkages exert a positive impact onto the local productivity levels, thereby drawing attention of policy makers towards strengthening of supplier–buyer relationship between local and multinationals in order to optimize the benefits from FDI. This study also acknowledges the heterogeneity of local (foreign) firms and their differential capacity to absorb (exude) the FDI-induced externalities.