Funzioni scalari affini generalizzate

In questo lavoro si estende il concetto di funzione affine a tutte le classi di funzioni che verificano sia una sorta di concavità generalizzata sia la corrispondente proprietà di convessità generalizzata. Di tali classi vengono studiate le relazioni di inclusione e le proprietà relative alle trasformazioni di funzione.

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Summary In this paper some different classes of functions, generalizing the concept of affine function, are introduced and studied. Properties and relationships among the classes are given and some properties about functions transformation are provided.

     

Celebrating 20 Years of Publication of Accounting Education: an international journal: 1992–2011

This paper describes the background to the establishment of Accounting Education: an international journal, as well as an outline of its distinctive characteristics, including the international focus of the journal both in relation to the composition of its Editorial Boards and its authorship since its launch in 1992. A thematic analysis of papers for the second decade of the journal is incorporated, together with insights as to the future directions in accounting education. As the 20-year milestone of the journal was reached Professor Richard M. S. Wilson completed his term of office as founding Editor, and a new Editor took over. The paper recognises Professor Wilson's efforts in establishing an international journal devoted to publishing accounting education research relevant to practitioners, academics, trainers, students, researchers and professional bodies.     

Measuring China's innovative capacity: a stochastic frontier exercise

We adopt a stochastic frontier analysis of innovative activity to disentangle countries’ patenting capacity from patenting efficiency. We analyse the determinants of innovative capacity of a set of 26 OECD countries plus China, over the period 1992–2007, to show if and how China's technological activity is growing faster than commonly held as compared to the most innovative countries of the world. Our results highlight that both internal and external elements jointly contribute to enhance countries’ innovative capacity and efficiency. In particular, while government-funded R&D is more important for innovative capacity, privately funded R&D as well as foreign direct investments (FDIs) affects technical efficiency (TE). Moreover, as for the whole set of countries, FDIs seem to exert a resource-seeking role (as they negatively affect TE), this does not happen for China, where FDIs exert a positive effect. Results are robust to the use of alternative measures of innovative inputs (such as higher education expenditure in R&D and R&D personnel, but also FDI flows rather than stocks). Finally, human capital measures are generally not very effective in enhancing patenting efficiency, apart from tertiary education.     

Corporate Sustainability and Ethical Codes Effectiveness

In the last years, the issues regarding both sustainable development and business global responsibility have qualified the corporate governance effectiveness. Many international institutions have intervened and the companies, at least formally, have increased their attention to the interaction between stakeholder relationship management and economic, social, and environmental responsibility. The numerous and frequent scandals underline the discrepancy between the firms＇ formal statements and the substantial behaviors. Most of the companies, in the industrialized country, publish well-structured code of ethics and conduct, explicating the strategic values assigned to the global responsibility. The research considers the capability of the code of conduct to influence effectively the behaviors, in relation with the needs of transparency, sharing, coherent individual behavior, and control. In relation to the importance conferred to the sustainable development by the European Union （EU）, the analysis examines listed companies with the greatest market capitalization operating in the Great Britain, Germany, and Italy, in order to verify the firms＇ behavioral uniformity and the effectiveness of sustainability policies. The analysis shows that the codes of ethics seem to remain only formal declarations. Conscious and rational governance not only transfers values and principles of sustainability to the firm＇s behaviors and its result system, but also goes beyond a mere diffusion and formalization of codes of ethics and conducts. To achieve that, it is necessary to develop productive behaviors focused on the risk control and on managing behaviors of all the organization＇s members, in particular in reference to the stakeholder relationship management. The codes of ethics, in fact, seem to assume a poor relevance for the corporate sustainability promotion if a correct formal structure does not occur integrated with strategies and processes which assure a constant workability. It requests especially： the ethic cu     

Validation study of a model for the assessment of potential in Italian Young Professionals working in medium-sized to large companies in different business sectors

The paper presents the results of a survey carried out on the potential profiles of 1,068 Italian Young Professionals coming out from Assessment Center and Development Center activities. A review carried out on a database of potential profiles made available by GSO, which has acknowledged the potential assessments conducted by 35 medium to large sized companies of 8 different business sectors (Banking, Publishing, Pharmaceutical, Large-scale distribution, Transports, Fashion and Luxury, Telecommunications, Energy) over ten years, showed that the potential assessment of Young Professionals was carried out by means of observation grids including from 15 to 20 different skills, reaching a total number of 48 skills evaluated in all the companies examined. The aim of this research is to achieve an assessment model that includes the smallest possible number of highly predictive potential skills, avoiding dispersions and redundancies in the assessment and maximizing the opportunities for the companies to make correct managerial choices when using potential data. The research has applied a series of statistical models (correlation, factor analysis and regression) in order to reduce the number of abilities and identify those that predict the overall performance. The results show that the number of “necessary” skills is below 10. Two assessment models have been obtained, one defined as Narrow (eight necessary skills) and another defined as Broad (14 skills, the necessary ones plus others considered as “secondary” but relevant).     

Trainees' reactions to training: an analysis of the factors affecting overall satisfaction with training

The study examines a relatively neglected, but important, aspect of the analysis and evaluation of training, namely trainees' immediate reaction to training. In particular, we focused on an analysis of the factors that affect participants' overall satisfaction with training. We first identified three key situational antecedents of training satisfaction, including trainees' perceptions of the efficiency and usefulness of the training, and their perceptions of trainer performance. Specific hypotheses relating each of these factors to training satisfaction were then developed and tested using data from a sample of about 3000 trainees from a range of Italian companies participating in a large-scale regionally-funded training programme involving over 300 different training courses. The results revealed that, although all three hypothesised antecedents were significantly positively related to training satisfaction, the perceived usefulness of training had the strongest effect. Importantly, the results also suggest the lack of any clear compensatory effects of the three antecedents on training satisfaction. Theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

Analysis of drawdowns and drawups in the US$ interest-rate market

Abstract

By analysing a large data set of daily returns with the maximum likelihood data clustering technique, we identify economic sectors as clusters of assets with a similar economic dynamics. The sector size distribution follows Zipf's law. Secondly, we find that patterns of daily market-wide economic activity cluster into classes that can be identified with market states. The distribution of frequencies of market states shows scale-free properties and the memory of the market state process extends to long times (～50 days). Assets in the same sector behave similarly across states. We characterize market efficiency by analysing the market's predictability and find that the market is indeed close to being efficient. We find evidence of the existence of a dynamic pattern after the market's crashes.