Protection for maturing industries: Evidence from Canadian trade patterns and trade policy, 1870–1913

As industries mature, experience is accumulated, productivity increases, trade performance improves on domestic and international markets and learning potential dissipates. Using theory‐consistent empirical specifications, I find a strong, robust negative relationship linking tariff rates to trade performance for manufactured products that matured during the first decade after Canada prioritized protectionist policy objectives in 1879. This relationship also holds at a more aggregate industry level, where I can use other measures of maturity, control for import penetration, use historically contemporaneous trade elasticity estimates, link trade performance to trade restrictiveness and effective rates of protection and where I can instrument for import penetration and trade performance using a two‐stage IV–GMM estimation approach. The results suggest that after 1890 the Canadian government carefully cut tariffs on products produced by maturing Canadian producers and this retreat from protectionism significantly lowered the static deadweight losses resulting from Canadian trade policy during the post‐1890 period.     

Tweaking public sector reporting with integrated reporting (IR) concepts

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the annual departmental reports prepared by Maltese government departments and highlights the gap between current practices and integrated reporting (IR). The authors suggest that principles and elements of IR could be gradually introduced in an effort to enhance transparency and accountability. The internalization of integrated thinking could also lead to enhanced value creation, and overcome the silo mentality that characterizes the Maltese public sector. Detailed guidelines for preparing ADRs urgently need to be developed in Malta—preparers should not expect to find them in the IIRC Framework, because they are not there.     

New development: ‘Healing at a distance’—telemedicine and COVID-19

ABSTRACT

In extreme circumstances such as pandemics, the presence of patients in hospital emergency departments becomes untenable. Healthcare professionals and organizations worldwide are leaning on technology as a crucial ally to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak. This article focuses on the positive impact of telemedicine for helping service provision, from enabling virtual triage to mitigating the negative psychological effects of social isolation. The authors discuss the challenges and opportunities to telemedicine practices.     

The challenge of articulating human rights at an LGBT ‘mega-event’: a personal reflection on Sao Paulo Pride 2017

Abstract

This paper brings together Critical Event Studies (CES) and a reflexive/narrative autoethnographic approach in order to stimulate a debate around the commodification of public space, and the management of mega-events of dissent. This is achieved using the example of the researcher’s participation in the 2017 Sao Paulo Pride. Sao Paulo Pride is one of the largest LGBT demonstrations in the world. However, corporate interests in the event have commodified dissent in order to commercialise ‘otherness’, and the city has absorbed the demonstration into its cultural offer as a global brand. The confluence of these factors produces a pattern of place dressing and erasure that depoliticise the event and undermines its capacity to effectively articulate human rights. Currently Brazil has some of the most liberal LGBT laws of any South American state, yet recently Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT)/Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) human rights have been threatened by a rapid rise in hate crime and the emergence of an evangelical Christian right in state and regional assemblies. Within such a context the need to revive the roots of Pride as an articulation of otherness that demands recognition, and as a robust defence of human rights for the LGBT/SOGI community, is more pressing than ever.     

Big Data for Creating and Capturing Value in the Digitalized Environment: Unpacking the Effects of Volume,Variety, and Veracity on Firm Performance*

Despite significant academic and managerial interest in big data, there is a dearth of research on how big data impacts the long‐term firm performance. Reasons for this gap include a lack of objective indices to measure big data availability and its impact, and the tendency of studies to ignore the costs associated with collecting and analyzing big data, assuming that big data automatically delivers benefits to firms. Focusing on how firms create and capture value from big data about customers, we use the resource‐based view and three dimensions of big data (i.e., volume, variety, and veracity) to understand when the benefits outweigh the costs. Relying on the number of downloads of mobile device applications, we find that volume of big data has a negative effect on firm performance. This result suggests that the “bigness” of big data alone does not ensure value creation for a firm, and could even constitute a “dark side” of big data. Because big data variety—measured as the number of types of information taken per each application—moderates the negative effects of big data volume, simultaneous high values of volume and variety allow firms to create value that positively affects their performance. In addition, high levels of veracity (i.e., a high percentage of employees devoted to big data analysis), are linked to firms benefiting from big data via value capture. These findings shed light on the circumstances in which big data can be beneficial for firms, contributing to a better theoretical understanding of the opportunities and challenges and providing useful indications to managers.     

A conceptual model and research agenda for bidding,planning and delivering Major sport events that lever human rights

In this conceptual article, the authors propose a framework for how progressive human rights outcomes may be obtained in the context of bidding, planning and implementing major sport events (MSEs) through the implementation of four pathways, including good governance, the democratic participation of stakeholders, the formalisation of human rights agendas and the deployment of sensitive urban development. The authors argue that there is a need for adherence to internationally recognised standards, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights if rhetorical statements from MSE awarding bodies and host organisers are to be accountable to a wider set of actors. If researchers and practitioners want to address some of the critical issues related to human rights and MSEs, it is imperative that key actors working in the rights sphere are involved in shaping the research agenda and monitoring its implementation. Academics need to take a proactive approach aimed at achieving both theoretically grounded and practically relevant solutions, with engagement occurring over an extended period of time. This approach, avowedly political and concerned with genuine action, is a key way in which MSE stakeholders can be held to account for their actions in regard to human rights.     

A Study on Firms with Negative Book Value of Equity

This paper studies the puzzling negative book equity phenomenon among US public firms. Our evidence suggests that negative book equity firms exhibit heterogeneous characteristics. We show that a great portion of these firms, while operating at excessive capital structure with leverage ratio over 100%, are financially and operationally healthy. These healthy negative book equity firms increase their debt primarily motived by a need for funds to fulfill investment demand. We also find that the off‐balance sheet intangible assets and quality of intangible assets play an important role in determining the true debt capacity of these firms.     

Innovation in R&D service firms: evidence from the UK

Research and Development (R&D) service firms make significant contributions to innovation in other businesses. The extant literature considers these firms a homogenous sub-group of Knowledge Intensive Business Service firms (KIBS). The objective of this study is to investigate how R&D service firms innovate and the variety of innovation practices within these firms. Employing data from semi-structured interviews with senior managers from 32 UK-based R&D service firms, we suggest that there are two different modes of innovation: in the first mode, R&D service firms innovate similarly to KIBS whose innovation is ad-hoc in nature and driven by customers’ requests; another group of R&D service firms innovate like New Technology-based Firms (NTBFs) relying more on structured in-house R&D activities.