Can’t the university be more like business?

Businesspeople sigh, Cant the university be more like business. The faculty complain about business values crowding out academic values. The truth, I contend, lies in the muddy middle. In some respects the university is becoming more like business, and in other respects business is becoming more like the university. The university would do well to emulate business on some dimensions, and business would do well to emulate the university on other dimensions. The worst-case scenario is for the university to move away from those of its non-businesslike qualities that are worth preserving even while it apes business precisely on those qualities business is giving up.JEL Classification: I2, I21Susanne Lohmann: I would like to thank two referees for their insightful comments and Amihai Glazer for handling editorial matters.     

In Public Servants We Trust?: A behavioural experiment on public service motivation and trust among students of public administration,business sciences and law

Using a laboratory experiment with monetary rewards to explore the effect of self-reported public service motivation (PSM) on choosing to study public administration and on trust behaviour reveals that students of public administration behave more trusting and trustworthy than business sciences and law students. Self-reported PSM is positively associated with trust behaviour, but does not explain trust differences between the three groups. This indicates that the normative orientation that underlies self-reported PSM exerts a stronger influence on behaviour in a low-cost decision than in a high-cost decision with long-term consequences such as choosing a field of study.     

Mergers and Acquisitions in European banking higher productivity or better synergy among business lines?

This paper aims at assessing the extent to which M&As in European banking sector over the period 1996–2003 result in two simultaneous catching up and convergence processes of consolidating groups. First, do the M&As significantly contribute to the consolidating banks to catch-up with the productivity benchmark? Second, in terms of synergies or complementarities among business lines, is there a convergence process of output mixes among the individual banks of the M&A operations? Our sample is made up of 42 M&A transactions and 587 non-merging banks in Europe. The main conclusion is that M&A operations in the European banking industry appear to be essentially motivated by an objective of improving complementarities among lines of work from each component of M&As rather than increasing productivity at the merged banks.     

The role of entrepreneurship education as a predictor of university students’ entrepreneurial intention

Using Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior and Shapero’s entrepreneurial event model as well as entrepreneurial cognition theory, we attempt to identify the relationship between entrepreneurship education, prior entrepreneurial exposure, perceived desirability and feasibility, and entrepreneurial intentions (EI) for university students. The data were collected from a survey of ten universities; we received 494 effective responses. We used probit estimation to show that perceived desirability significantly impacts EI whereas there is no significant impact from perceived feasibility. There is a significant negative impact from exposure (which is surprising) and a significant positive impact from entrepreneurship education. Males and people from technological universities and/or backgrounds have higher EI than females and people from other universities and backgrounds. There are also significant positive interactive effects by gender, university type, and study major on the relationship between entrepreneurship education and EI.     

Measuring and comparing World Bank regions’ ‘ease of doing business’ opportunity sets

Journal of Productivity Analysis - This paper measures and compares the World Bank regions’ opportunity sets to promote ease of doing business for the years 2010 and 2019, as well as the time...     

Market exit of firms: Does corruption act as grease or sand?

This paper examines whether corruption acts to “grease” or “sand” firms' exit. Corruption could facilitate exit when it is a tax that distorts markets, or it might retard exit when it empowers firms to obtain undue favors. Results, using panel data across US states and considering market exit and firms' death rates as dependent variables, show that greater corruption acts as grease rather than sand in that it facilitates firms' exit/death. In other findings, larger states, greater regulations, and more unemployment contributed to exit, as did some demographic aspects. Higher state minimum wages resulted in firms' death but not exit.     

Does joining social media groups help to reduce students’ dropout within the first university year?

Using observational data, the aim of our study paper was to investigate whether university students’ dropout within the first year is influenced by participation in social media groups such as Facebook pages created and run by other students. Specifically, in this paper such participation is considered as a treatment and represents a means to help promote and strengthen social relationships amongst students but also to help share information on courses and other material useful for studying and preparing for exams. For this purpose, data from a sample survey of students enrolled in a major Italian university were used. Given a non-random treatment assignment, analysis was carried out using propensity score matching (PSM) in order to correct for selection bias due to a set of observable pretreatment covariates. Several matching techniques and sensitivity analyses suggested that the results were robust for estimating an average treatment effect on the treated group. The estimated effect indicated that participation in social media groups is effective for lowering the dropout rate.     

Organized crime and business subsidies: Where does the money go?

Business support policies are widespread in advanced countries, to foster employment and productivity. This paper analyses the role of organized crime in the allocation of public subsidies to businesses. We assemble an innovative data set on the Italian mafia at municipality level and test whether mafia-ridden municipalities receive a disproportionally higher amount of funds. We exploit exogenous variation at municipality level to instrument mafia activity and show that the presence of organized crime positively affects the probability of obtaining funding and the amount of public funds. Organized crime is also found to lead to episodes of corruption in the public administration sector. A series of robustness checks confirms the above findings.     

The private equity business model and associated strategies for HRM: evidence and implications?

Are private equity firms significant actors in the UK market for corporate control? Do they represent a new organizational form befitting a new business model? What are the direct and indirect pressures on management that flow from the diffusion of this business model and its associated organizational form? In terms of human resource management does acquisition by private equity have a significant or negligible effect? This paper looks at the development and diffusion of private equity and the ‘take private’ private equity business model (PEBM) and the effects of these on the management of HR. In addition to this the paper evaluates the PEBM within comparative institutional approaches to international business and HRM.     

Information technology and rural development: unique opportunity or potential threat? *

The less deterministic view of the potential contribution of information technology to rural development suggests a range of possible outcomes including centralization and decentralization. Evidence from the Republic of Ireland indicates a weak trend towards rural areas benefiting from the new technologies, and an expansion of the information economy in the urban core.     

Student performance in business and economics statistics: Does exam structure matter?

We investigate whether exam structure really matters in an economics and business statistics course by (1) determining how well performance on multiple choice questions alone expalins overall performance on exams composed of both multiple choice questions and problems, and (2) discovering whether various student characteristics have significantly different impacts on student performance on multiple choice questions versus problems. Our findings suggest that student scores on multiple-choice portions of exams do not adequately determine overall student performance, and that some students are predisposed to do better on multiple choice or problems depending on the characteristics they possess.(JEl A22, A29)     

Cleaner production: organizational learning or business as usual? An example from the domestic appliance industry

It is frequently argued that approaches to minimizing the environmental, health and safety impact of industry (i.e. cleaner production) require that firms engage in a process of participative learning involving all levels of the organizational hierarchy. This paper examines the key concept of organizational learning, particularly in terms of the associated concepts of ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’, drawing on a study of a large, environmentally pro‐active firm and recent critical literature on the experience of work. It is suggested that, although contemporary management philosophy pays lip service to increased workforce participation and empowerment, there are formidable structural and cultural barriers to such change. Initiatives within firms to stimulate learning and continuous improvement around cleaner production can be understood in terms of firstly the relative power of individuals and groups within organizations to define and activate learning agendas and secondly the emphasis given to low cost, low skill and low trust as a route to competitiveness, particularly in a UK business context. Finally, attention is drawn to the weakness of external mechanisms for supporting genuine participation and empowerment within enterprises around health, safety and environmental issues. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment     

Women’s experiences of legitimacy,satisfaction and commitment as entrepreneurs: embedded in gender hierarchy and networks in private and business spheres

ABSTRACT

When a woman perceives legitimacy in her job as an entrepreneur from networks that are often influenced by the gender hierarchy that grants men higher status than women, she is encouraged in her job. What are the effects of gender hierarchy and networks on the legitimacy a female entrepreneur perceives and on her satisfaction and commitment to the job? A sample of 5997 female entrepreneurs in the developing world was surveyed for Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. They were found to experience legitimacy as entrepreneurs in their networks in the private sphere and the business sphere. Gender hierarchy constrains legitimacy more in the private sphere than it does in the business sphere. Legitimacy in the business sphere can fulfil the need to feel competent and enhance job satisfaction, while legitimacy in the private sphere can fulfil the need to feel related and enhance job commitment. The account contributes to a two-level contextualization of experiences: micro-level embedding in networks that are nested in macro-level embedding in gender hierarchy.     

Does air pollution change a firm's business strategy for employing capital and labor?

We examine the impact of air pollution on a firm's capital-labor ratio. We propose the hypothesis that, in dealing with air pollution, a firm responds strategically by using relatively more capital and less labor to contain labor costs and remain competitive in the market. Using a sample of Chinese firms and a satellite-based air pollution metric, we test this hypothesis, and our results confirm it. In addition, we document that the impact of air pollution on the capital-labor ratio is more salient for firms with high economic incentives and close monitoring. Further, we report that to respond to worsening air pollution, a firm uses more capital and substitutes lower-quality labor with more high-quality labor. Finally, after increasing the capital-labor ratio, a firm's value increases, in terms of Tobin's Q, suggesting that the adoption of a higher capital-labor ratio, due to air pollution, is a sound business strategy.     

Templates for financial control? Management and employees under the private equity business model

The term ‘private equity business model’ (PEBM) refers to private equity investors that delist publicly quoted firms, managing them as private equity‐controlled portfolio firms. But how and in what form do these investors diffuse a preferred template for the PEBM in portfolio firms? Is diffusion codified, institutionalised or merely tacit? What is the difference between these forms of diffusion? As a method of financial control, how is diffusion evident for managers and workers? Theoretically, while ‘financialisation’ is a contemporary pressure on the British economy, there is a ‘disconnection’ between competitive pressures for financialisation and the diffusion of practices to manage these pressures in portfolio firms. Forty‐two interviews in eight portfolio firms and five associated private equity firms concludes that potentially transformative and decisive restructuring for managers and workers is more evident than a defined template.     

What have we learnt about board gender diversity as a business strategy? The appointment of board subcommittees

This paper explores whether a board's gender diversity influences the voluntary formation of its board subcommittees. Female board directorship may become a business strategy for firms if it affects the appointment of board subcommittees. We hypothesize that the voluntary creation of board subcommittees is affected by the presence of female directors on boards; the presence of independent, executive, and institutional female directors; and the proportion of shares held by female directors on boards. Board gender diversity has been measured as a proportion and with Blau's index. The results show that independent female directors are positively associated with the likelihood of voluntarily setting up all or some of the committees and a supervision and control committee. The presence of executive female directors negatively influences the probability of forming all or some of the committees, an executive committee and a supervision and control committee. The percentage of shares held by female directors has a positive effect on the voluntary creation of an executive committee. The findings also report that women directors and institutional female directors do not contribute to the voluntary creation of board subcommittees. Our evidence shows that female board directorship impacts the demand of internal control mechanisms such as board subcommittees, suggesting that firms should take it into account as a business strategy. The main implications derived from this research are relevant for Spanish policymakers and researchers because board gender diversity may play a significant role in the decision‐making processes of firms and may influence firms' outcomes.