Enhancing performance in small professional firms through vision communication and sharing

Despite evidence of a positive relationship, vision’s effects on performance are not fully understood, particularly in small professional service settings. This study advances prior research using a multi-stakeholder, multi-measure approach. It reports a positive relationship between vision-communication and -sharing on performance in Australian retail pharmacies using five measures—financial assessments, employee and customer satisfaction, productivity, and staff retention. Organizations whose managers communicate the vision to staff and whose employees share this vision outperform their peers across all business indicators and retain their employees longer. Financial performance and productivity were higher with long-term staff and managers.     

Firm Growth,European Industry Dynamics and Domestic Business Cycles

Based on the empirical firm growth literature and on heterogeneous (microeconomic) adjustment models, this paper empirically investigates the impact of European industry fluctuations and domestic business cycles on the growth performance of European firms. Since the implementation of the Single Market Program the 27 EU member states share a common market. Accordingly, the European industry business cycle is expected to become a more influential predictor of European firms’ behavior at the expense of domestic fluctuations. Empirically, the results of a two‐part model for a sample of European manufacturing firms reject this hypothesis. In addition, exporting firms and subsidiaries of multinational enterprises constitute the most stable firm cohort throughout the observed business cycle.     

Integrating global and local procurement for superior supplier working relations

Globalization is forcing global organizations to focus on processes that will enable them to more effectively and efficiently integrate and coordinate their activities throughout their worldwide organization. As such, global sourcing is becoming a standard practice in many global organizations. Using a dataset of 1455 observations from the suppliers of a North American-based global manufacturer of high technology products, this research evaluates how a global company can utilize a globally integrated procurement organization to achieve global and local sourcing responsiveness and superior supplier working relations. The study found that if a global procurement organization aspires to achieve exceptional supplier working relations, it should be highly integrated across its geographic regions with knowledgeable global and local procurement personnel who effectively communicate with the firm's suppliers, while working closely together in a coordinated manner to achieve a globally responsive supply chain.     

Rule of thumb for the determination of a sufficient risk reserve

Abstract

A particle starts a random walk from the point U on the χaxis. Each step it takes during its random walk along the χaxis is a random variable with mean value λ, standard deviation a and coefficient of skewness γ.     

Convergence of interest rate pass-through in a wider euro zone?

This study investigates interest rate pass-through convergence for the eight Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) that joined the European Union. Based on a unifying empirical pass-through model that allows for thresholds, asymmetric adjustment, and structural changes, we find that the pass-through in many CEECs has become faster over time and is generally more complete than in the euro zone. We find evidence for convergence across CEECs with market concentration, bank health, foreign bank participation and monetary policy regime as conditioning factors. No convergence of the CEEC pass-through is found vis-à-vis the heterogeneous euro zone.