Maximizing your return on people

Though most traditional HR performance metrics don't predict organizational performance, alternatives simply have not existed--until now. During the past ten years, researchers Laurie Bassi and Daniel McMurrer have worked to develop a system that allows executives to assess human capital management (HCM) and to use those metrics both to predict organizational performance and to guide organizations' investments in people. The new framework is based on a core set of HCM drivers that fall into five major categories: leadership practices, employee engagement, knowledge accessibility, workforce optimization, and organizational learning capacity. By employing rigorously designed surveys to score a company on the range of HCM practices across the five categories, it's possible to benchmark organizational HCM capabilities, identify HCM strengths and weaknesses, and link improvements or back-sliding in specific HCM practices with improvements or shortcomings in organizational performance. The process requires determining a "maturity" score for each practice, based on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high). Over time, evolving maturity scores from multiple surveys can reveal progress in each of the HCM practices and help a company decide where to focus improvement efforts that will have a direct impact on performance. The authors draw from their work with American Standard, South Carolina's Beaufort County School District, and a bevy of financial firms to show how improving HCM scores led to increased sales, safety, academic test scores, and stock returns. Bassi and McMurrer urge HR departments to move beyond the usual metrics and begin using HCM measurement tools to gauge how well people are managed and developed throughout the organization. In this new role, according to the authors, HR can take on strategic responsibility and ensure that superior human capital management becomes central to the organization's culture.     

Women's higher education in the 21st century: From ‘women friendly' towards women's universities

This article is based on the idea that gender issues are crucial when discussing the future of the university. They determine the way we situate and contextualise this important institution and the very idea of the university. In this context traditional and alternative ideas of the university, including feminist and women's alternatives, are assessed. The article also explores current transformations of the universities and how they will influence women.     

Croatia and the SET-Plan： Intents and Results

Energy efficiency and environment protection are the international concern. European Union, under its energy and climate policy, adopted goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, and increasing the proportion of European energy which comes from renewable sources up to 20% by 2020. Until 2007, the development of these technologies in the European Union （EU） was undertaken in a dispersed, fragmented, sometimes even competing way. The Strategic Energy Technology Plan （SET-Plan） is the pillar of the EU＇s energy and climate policy aiming at development of affordable, clean, efficient, and low emission energy technologies through coordinated research. Croatian accession to the EU required meeting the main challenges as the other member states, involving increase in energy efficiency and renewable energy used as some of the basic components of sustainable development. Funding projects in the area of ecology and energy preservation, odds and prospects for public bodies and Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund （FZOEU） involvement in financial support of the projects, additional sources of funding etc., are some of the numerous questions this paper is aiming to address in order to assess the Croatian absorption capacities for the SET-Plan as one of the most important EU strategies.     

Expected earnings growth and the cost of capital: an analysis of accounting regime change in the European financial market

This study focuses on the relation between the cost of equity capital and earnings expectations when the properties of accounting that determine earnings vary across different regulatory regimes. More particularly, it addresses the European setting where different types of GAAP regime have continued to function in the presence of the gradual harmonization of the underlying legal framework, and where the adoption of internationally recognized accounting standards by certain firms has anticipated the requirement for International Financial Reporting Standards. On the basis of estimates of the cost of equity that are implied by analysts' earnings forecasts, the article provides evidence that financial market integration may have already contributed to mitigating the economic consequences of accounting diversity, and that switching to IFRS could have a short lived impact on capital markets. Moreover, based on firm level transparency and disclosure rankings provided by Standard and Poor's, it is shown how the quality of financial reporting conditions the implied cost of equity under different GAAP.     

The influence of gender on the effectiveness of probability markers in advertising

The results of two studies reveal that gender plays a moderating role on the effects that the use of probability markers (hedges – e.g., possibly, could help; and pledges – e.g., definitely, without a doubt) in advertising copy has on consumers' attitudes towards the brand advertised and purchase intentions. Women, as comprehensive processors, are not particularly sensitive to probability markers, which function as heuristic cues. Men, on the other hand, display higher levels of sensitivity towards probability marker usage; more precisely, their responses show preference towards the use of hedges over both pledges and no probability markers in advertising copy. Interactions with product category involvement, buying motivation (hedonic or utilitarian), and familiarity with the brand advertised are also explored.     

Choice Consistency and Preference Stability in Test-Retests of Discrete Choice Experiment and Open-Ended Willingness to Pay Elicitation Formats

This study tests the temporal stability of preferences, choices and willingness to pay (WTP) values using both discrete choice experiment (DCE) and open-ended (OE) WTP elicitation formats. The same sample is surveyed three times over the course of two years using each time the same choice sets. Choice consistency is positively correlated with choice certainty and choice complexity. The impact of choice complexity fades away in time, most likely as a result of learning and preference refinement. Although the OE WTP values remain stable over a time period of 2 years as in previous stated preference studies, DCE based WTP measures differ significantly, suggesting their use in benefits transfer may be limited.     

Disparities in the financial performance of agricultural entities according to the legal form: the case of Slovakia

Financial management in agricultural enterprises is affected by a range of factors that are not present in other sectors. One of the factors that affect the performance of enterprises is the legal or organizational form of the business. In Slovakia, the specific structure of farms is different from that of almost any other member state of the European Union. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the disparities in the financial performance of agricultural enterprises according to the legal form. We analysed and compared two groups of agricultural entities, agricultural cooperatives and business companies, for the period from 2005 to 2014. Based on an analysis of the differences using mathematical and statistical methods, we can conclude that the legal forms are distinguished in all monitored parameters and our hypothesis on the differences in economic performance of agricultural entities according to legal form was confirmed.     

Informing the US Energy Policy Debate with Threshold 21

There has been growing concern about the recent emergence of the critical challenges of energy availability and the impacts of climate change. Both are inextricably linked and dealing with them is fundamental to the progress of America and humanity. There are, however, a number of different views expressed, reflecting different assumptions, special interests, and partisan objectives. Decision-makers and the public need easy-to-use and transparent tools to better visualize, analyze, and understand the broader and longer-term implications of the varying underlying assumptions, policies, and strategies, including both their positive and negative impacts — both direct and indirect — and how to manage them.Threshold 21 (T21) the simulation model presented in this paper aims to become such a tool. The Millennium Institute has developed it over the last 24 years.The T21-USA model results indicate that a continuation of current policies and trends will lead the US to become increasingly dependent on foreign energy resources and more vulnerable to price fluctuations. Furthermore, alternative scenarios simulating improved CAFE and Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) show that major reductions in the US' resource consumption and pollution generation could be possible while stimulating the economy over the medium and longer term. Nevertheless, the model shows that unintended consequences, such as the Jevons Paradox, have to be taken into consideration when defining national energy policies.