Forget about ‘the ideal worker’: A theoretical contribution to the debate on flexible workplace designs,work/life conflict,and opportunities for gender equality

This study integrates insights from Self-Determination Theory and Boundary Theory to present scenarios on how flexible workplace designs can trigger multiple motivational processes underlying gendered work/nonwork integration behaviors, and how these affect work/life conflict. We disentangle processes underlying work engagement and work/life conflict, explaining the paradoxical outcomes found with regard to gender inequality in terms of work/life performance, satisfaction, and health. Policy makers and organizations need an increased understanding and a reconceptualization of these issues, realizing that the ideal worker does not exist. Instead, a long-term perspective is needed in order to truly realize the potential benefits of flexible workplace designs for all stakeholders. Organizations need to take responsibility for preventing individual workers’ depletion and stimulating the regeneration of workers’ resources.     

Platform coopetition in the tourism industry: conflicts and tensions caused by the closure of Booking.com in Turkey

In March 2017, as a result of a precautionary interim decision made by the courts based on the case relating to ‘unfair competition practices’, Booking.com closed its platform for inbound tourism in Turkey and ceased operations. This was the first instance of an online booking platform halting access for inbound bookings for the domestic market. This platform-based relationship involves both cooperation and competition, and thus this paper identifies this relationship as platform coopetition. Based on the governance network theory and employing a case-study approach, the Booking.com case is examined from the viewpoint of tourism coopetition from two perspectives: industry-wide and agent-specific. The paper provides an analysis of these perspectives and the past and on-going process of Booking.com’s platform closure. The constitutive dynamics this case endangers the coopetitive environment of the tourism industry and thus creates destructive uncertainties, especially for small hotels. This analysis also reveals the issues in terms of political representation for digital service platform companies.     

The Great Recession,Austerity and Inequality: Lessons from Ireland

The advent of the Great Recession and the widespread adoption of fiscal austerity policies have heightened concern about inequality and its effects. We examine how the distribution of income in Ireland—a country which experienced one of the most severe economic contractions—has evolved over the years 2008 to 2013. Standard cross‐sectional analysis of the income distribution shows broad stability in the Gini coefficient and in decile shares, with one main exception: the share of the bottom decile fell sharply, with the largest fall in average incomes being for that group. Longitudinal analysis shows that the falls in the average income for the bottom decile were not due to decreasing income for those remaining in the bottom decile, but to falls in income from those initially located in higher deciles. The extent of redistribution through taxes and transfers increased strongly, as measured by the Reynolds‐Smolensky index, which rose from 0.20 before the onset of the crisis to 0.27 in 2013. Analysis indicates that about three‐quarters of this increased redistribution is due to automatic stabilisers and one‐quarter to discretionary policy changes.     

Neighbors and friends: How do European political parties respond to globalization?

This paper explores the relationship between globalization and party positions accounting for potential differences between left- and right-wing parties. The analysis is based on a panel model of 36 political parties in 18 Western European countries between 1970 and 2015. We find that right-wing parties move leftward in response to globalization, while left-wing parties do not alter their position. Additionally, we find that ideological party positions are affected by foreign parties’ positions of the same ideological bloc. These findings indicate that there is a convergence towards the left of the political spectrum due to right-wing party moderation.     

Do health system reforms stand a chance?

While most major reforms of health systems fail, those that succeed are motivated by politicians' quest for reducing the health burden on their budget in response to a shift in voters' preferences away from public health. An Edgeworth box is used to depict their preferences, in addition to those of (potential) patients and health‐care providers. Politicians are found to severely constrain the area of mutual advantage, suggesting that only minor reforms are possible unless they promise to lower health‐care expenditure. An efficiency‐enhancing change that would enlarge the box and hence the area of mutual advantage would be to suppress the requirement imposed on health insurers to purchase domestically, rather than being free to directly import health‐care services and drugs.     

A tale of two crises: Federal transfers and regional economies in Russia in 2009 and 2014–2015

We examine transfers from Russia’s federal government to the regions during the two recent economic crises. We show that while federal transfers in 2009 were large and targeted poorer regions, the 2014–2015 transfers were much smaller and not targeted. This policy shift was accompanied by a relatively greater decline in own revenues in the poorer regions and their worse economic performance overall. As a result, interregional budget expenditure inequality in Russia was significantly higher in 2014–2015 than it had been for years. This is important because regional budgets are responsible for a large share of investments, housing, education and healthcare.     

Policy induced increases in private healthcare financing provide short-term relief of total healthcare expenditure growth: Evidence from OECD countries

Healthcare reforms have long been advocated as a cure to the increasing healthcare expenditures in advanced economies. Nevertheless, it has not been established whether a market solution via private financing, rather than public financing, curb aggregate healthcare expenditures. To our knowledge, this paper is the first that quantifies the impact of reforms that significantly increases (decreases) the private (public) share of healthcare financing on total healthcare expenditures relative to income in 20 OECD countries. Our reform measure is based on structural break testing of the private share of total expenditures, and verification using evidence of policy reforms. To quantify the effect of these reforms we apply Propensity Score Matching and Inverse Probability Weighted regression analysis. Over a 5-year evaluation period the reforms lead to an accumulated cost saving 0.45 percentage points of GDP. The yearly effects of the reforms are largest in the first years in the post-reform period and decreases in size as a function of time since the reform. Our findings suggest that the investigated healthcare reforms have a relatively short-lived effect on aggregate health spending relative to GDP. The findings are robust to various sensitivity tests.     

The power of positivity? The influence of positive psychological capital language on crowdfunding performance

We extend the entrepreneurship literature to include positive psychological capital — an individual or organization's level of psychological resources consisting of hope, optimism, resilience, and confidence — as a salient signal in crowdfunding. We draw from the costless signaling literature to argue that positive psychological capital language usage enhances crowdfunding performance. We examine 1726 crowdfunding campaigns from Kickstarter, finding that entrepreneurs conveying positive psychological capital experience superior fundraising performance. Human capital moderates this relationship while social capital does not, suggesting that costly signals may, at times, enhance the influence of costless signals. Post hoc analyses suggest findings generalize across crowdfunding types, but not to IPOs.     

Inequality and entrepreneurial thresholds

We explore the relationship between inequality and entrepreneurial activity. Drawing on cross-sectional data from a largescale survey of the economic conditions of individuals across India, we develop a number of dimensions of inequality to explore empirically how inequality interacts with entrepreneurship, operationalized as self-employment or as employing other people. We find compelling evidence that there are thresholds to becoming self-employed, and even more so to assembling the combinations of resources and personal attributes required to become an employer. Greater inequality leaves more people unable to make the transition to self-employment, leaving casual laboring as the occupation of necessity. At the same time, inequality increases the number of employers in a society, by concentrating resources - particularly land and finance - enough for significant numbers of people to be able to cross this higher threshold. Lastly, greater differentiation into social or religious groups curtails the ability to cross either entrepreneurial threshold, presumably by limiting the extent and benefits of social networks of value for entrepreneurship.     

Capital gains lock-in and governance choices

Differences in accrued gains and investors’ tax-sensitivity induce variation in a capital gains lock-in effect across mutual funds even for the same stock at the same time. Exploiting this variation, we show this effect influences funds’ governance decisions: higher capital gains decrease the likelihood a fund exits prior to contentious votes and increase the likelihood a fund votes against management. Consistent with tax motivation, these findings are concentrated among funds with tax-sensitive investors. Further, high aggregate capital gains across funds holding a stock predict a higher likelihood management loses a vote and a lower likelihood a contentious vote is proposed.