探寻瑞士

曾经有人这样说：＂如果有机会去游览一个城市,无疑是巴黎;如果有机会去一个城市生活,巴塞罗那或许是不错的选择;如果你想追赶历史的脚步,那自然非意大利莫属;而如果你想体会真正的美丽,那就去瑞士吧!＂     

低碳瑞士

统计数字表明：瑞士人的年平均收入高达81．7万瑞士法郎（1瑞士法郎约合人民币5．46元）。名列欧洲第一。当世界银行公布瑞士为最富裕的国家之后,该国媒体非常冷静,并没有过多地宣传。它们所关注的是,排名榜有没有着重考虑包括国民的低碳意识和节俭习惯等在内的非物质财富因素。     

White collar unions in Switzerland

Swiss trade unionism differs from that of other countries: lower strike incidence, lower trade union density and organisational segregation of blue and white collar employees. The author reviews and explains these differences and reports on the attitudes towards trade unionism of the German-speaking members of Switzerland's biggest white collar trade union organisation.     

Marketing of cultural institutions in French-speaking Switzerland

• Marketing in cultural institutions is a field that has rarely been studied in French-speaking Switzerland so far.
• Therefore this paper explores the way in which visitors-clients appreciate qualitatively their contacts with cultural institutions concerned with the visual arts in comparison with the communication strategy of the curators and directors of museums.
• A survey has been conducted amongst 20 museums and over 200 visitors of French-speaking Switzerland to evaluate the way visitors perceive the marketing of cultural institutions and behave accordingly or not.
• The paper concludes with recommendations to improve the knowledge of the visitors' background and expectations.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

瑞士中小企业的经营之道

瑞士的中小企业在国民经济中占有很重要的地位,许多久负盛名的产品都是中小企业生产的.据瑞士联邦统计局的最新统计,瑞士工业部门的中小企业共有7万多家,占工业企业总数的98.9%.长期以来,瑞士中小企业克服国内市场狭小、周围都是工业高度发达的大国等不利条件,依靠传统的技术优势,生产高度专业化,产品主要面向国际市场,被誉为瑞士经济发展的"主动力"和"支撑点".     

Income tax competition at the State and Local Level in Switzerland

Tax competition is supposed to lead to inefficiencies in the provision of public goods and difficulties for decentralized redistribution. A necessary condition for these effects to occur is that residence and location decisions are determined by fiscal considerations. In this paper, the impact of personal income taxes and transfer payments on residence decisions of taxpayers is analyzed using cross sectional data on the distribution of different groups of taxpayers in different income groups among the 26 Swiss cantons and the 137 largest Swiss cities. We find that tax competition with respect to personal income taxes is relatively strong in Switzerland.     

The Efficiency of Public Employment Services: A Nonparametric Matching Function Analysis for Switzerland

This study develops a methodology for assessing the efficiency of job placement services based on the matching function. Unlike most previous estimates of the matching function, based on aggregate time-series regressions and parametric functional forms, this study employs micro cross-sectional data and uses nonparametric frontier estimation techniques (DEA). The methodology is applied to 126 regional placement offices operating in Switzerland in the period 1997–98. In contrast to time-series regressions, our results point to sizable increasing returns-to-scale. Our findings also suggest that counseling is more effective than other active labor market measures or disciplining actions in increasing matching efficiency.     

Corporate entrepreneurship in Switzerland: evidence from a case study of Swiss watch manufacturers

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which Swiss companies engage in corporate entrepreneurship. To that end, a case study was undertaken to better understand how corporate entrepreneurship is practiced in the watch-making industry. Using a stratified sampling method, 18 corporate-level managers of Swiss watch manufacturers were interviewed over a 5-month period to determine their perception of their firm??s entrepreneurial orientation in terms of proactiveness, risk taking, innovativeness, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomy. Findings were mixed. As anticipated, given the conservative nature of Swiss culture and tradition, the executives reflected corporate values that inhibit proactiveness, risk-taking, and competitive aggressiveness. On the positive side, these executives espoused values that support a corporate culture of innovativeness and autonomy reflecting a resurgence of innovativeness in an otherwise mature industry.     

Incubator,technology, and innovation centres in Switzerland: features and policy implications

Only since the early 1990s, when unemployment rates in Switzerland soared to unprecedented levels, has federal technology and innovation policy begun to design their activities with regard to employment and the establishment of new firms. Now, all across the country, private as well as public incubator facilities, technology and innovation centres have begun to spring up. This paper starts by describing the theoretical and methodological background of a survey of incubator, technology and innovation (ITI) centres. In a first step, all cantonal offices for economic promotion were asked to report and to describe incubator facilities, technology and innovation centres within their realm. In a second step a selection of centres were analysed in depth. The key findings are that: (1) ITI centres are most commonly established by a combination of public and private initiatives; (2) the main motive for the creation of ITI centres is to promote startups and the innovative potential; (3) most ITI centres offer space to rent and make available joint amenities; (4) ITI centres are predominantly in manufacturing, services, and development activities; their level of technology input is high or very high; and (5) the spatial reach of most of the ITI centre is on the region. Together with selected foreign experiences, some conclusions and recommendations for the operation of such centres are formulated.     

The effects of national culture on ERP implementation: a study of Colombia and Switzerland

This research explores the effects of national culture, as understood by Hofstede's concepts of power distance, individualist/collectivist and uncertainty avoidance. The study is based on case studies of ERP implementation in Colombia and Switzerland and interviews and document analysis methods were employed. Evidence is found on the ways the three dimensions impact on ERP implementation. It is concluded that although the two countries differ markedly in each dimension, there was no evidence of specific individualist/collectivist effects. The implications of this are discussed.     

Quantifying entrepreneurship and its impact on local economic performance: A spatial assessment in rural Switzerland

Regional and rural development policies in Europe increasingly emphasize entrepreneurship to mobilize the endogenous economic potential of rural territories. This study develops a concept to quantify entrepreneurship as place-dependent local potential to examine its impact on the local economic performance of rural territories in Switzerland. The short-to-medium-term impact of entrepreneurship on the economic performance of 1706 rural municipalities in Switzerland is assessed by applying three spatial random effects models. Results suggest a generally positive relationship between entrepreneurship and local development: rural municipalities with higher entrepreneurial potential generally show higher business tax revenues per capita and a lower share of social welfare cases among the population, although the impact on local employment is less clear. The explanatory power of entrepreneurship in all three models, however, was only moderate. This finding suggests that political expectations of fostering entrepreneurship to boost endogenous rural development in the short-to-medium term should be damped.     

培训:人力资源开发的基石--英国、法国、瑞士培训情况扫描

随着经济全球化进程的加快,西欧各国普遍感到竞争带来的巨大压力和严峻挑战,产生了危机感和紧迫感,急切地寻找生存与发展的途径。他们不约而同地把眼睛盯在了人才战略上,在不惜血本吸纳各国优秀人才的同时,十分重视本国人力     

Identifying root causes of inefficiencies in road haulage: case studies from Sweden,Switzerland and Germany

ABSTRACT

Road haulage operations in general, and distribution in particular, are inefficient. Given the societal importance of road haulage and the low efficiency of the sector, road hauliers need to improve their operations and systematically tackle inefficiencies. However, the real causes of these inefficiencies, the ‘root causes’, have not been sufficiently examined in previous studies. This paper expands on prior research by adapting existing models that can be used to identify the root causes of inefficiencies, and to enable systematic improvements in road transport operations. Our research is based on a lean approach and an adapted version of Ishikawa’s model. It is shown as a matrix based on transport processes and the Ishikawa categories to identify the root causes of inefficiencies in road haulage that influence performance. The adapted model was tested in three road haulage case studies. Our findings suggest that most efficiency problems appear in the actual transport execution.     

Determinants and Consequences of a Voluntary Turn Away from IFRS to Local GAAP: Evidence from Switzerland

Abstract

We examine determinants and consequences of a turn away from International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) to local generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), thereby exploiting a unique feature of the Swiss setting in which listed firms are allowed to switch from IFRS to Swiss GAAP, all else being equal. We posit that net benefits of IFRS are less for small firms with higher insider ownership. In addition, we predict that the net benefits of IFRS are not constant over time because of changes in IFRS and/or changes in firm-specific circumstances. To the extent that the switching firms’ costs of IFRS reporting outweigh its benefits, we do not predict adverse capital-market effects after a switch. Consistent with predictions, we find that (a) small firms with higher insider ownership and fewer foreign investor holdings are more likely to switch, (b) increasing reporting costs as well as changes in firm-specific circumstances affect switching propensity, (c) switching firms substantially reduce their disclosures after they switch, and (d) switching firms neither experience a decrease in liquidity nor negative announcement returns. Overall, our findings are important for standard setters and securities regulators in shaping (future) reporting requirements for listed firms.     

Real exchange rate persistence and the excess return puzzle: The case of Switzerland versus the US

The PPP puzzle refers to the wide swings of nominal exchange rates around their long‐run equilibrium values whereas the excess return puzzle represents the persistent deviation of the domestic‐foreign interest rate differential from the expected change in the nominal exchange rate. Using the I(2) cointegrated VAR model, much of the excess return puzzle disappears when an uncertainty premium in the foreign exchange market, proxied by the persistent PPP gap, is introduced. Self‐reinforcing feedback mechanisms seem to cause the persistence in the Swiss‐US parity conditions. These results support imperfect knowledge based expectations rather than so‐called “rational expectations”.     

2009年瑞士女排精英赛中、巴、意三队得失分情况分析

通过对2009年瑞士女排精英赛中、巴、意三队的技术统计分析表明:巴西队、意大利队在进攻、拦网、发球等主要得分手段的运用上优于中国队。相比较,新中国女排在上述方面相对较低,有待于进一步提高。     

On the Relationship between Voluntary Disclosure,Earnings Smoothing and the Value-Relevance of Earnings: The Case of Switzerland

Abstract

This paper examines whether voluntary disclosure by Swiss firms constrains the use of discretionary accruals to smooth earnings, and explores the effect of voluntary disclosure on the value relevance of earnings. We focus on Swiss firms because Switzerland's financial reporting system provides managers with extensive discretion in corporate disclosure, and there are important variations in the level of information provided in their annual reports. We consider that managers can choose two different ways to voluntarily convey information, either through the quality and quantity of annual report disclosure or, through compliance with International Accounting Standards (IAS)/International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Relying on a simultaneous equations approach, our results suggest that Swiss firms use discretionary accruals to smooth earnings. However, this relation is reduced for firms that voluntarily disclose more information in their annual report or comply with IAS/IFRS or US GAAP. Moreover, we show that discretionary accruals of high disclosers or of firms voluntarily complying with IAS/IFRS or US GAAP receive a lower valuation weight.     

Host-country effects in coordinated,liberal and hybrid market economies: US subsidiaries in Switzerland,Germany and the UK

The paper addresses two as yet unexplored issues regarding the uptake of host-country employment relations practices, contributing to a better understanding of findings for hybrid host-market economies such as Switzerland. Host-country effects are differentiated by practices that belong to either industrial relations or education and training, as per the varieties of capitalism approach. There follows an investigation of the extent to which foreign subsidiaries' overall uptake of host-country employment relations practices is determined by the subsidiary incorporation type and size for practices related to industrial relations and education and training. Analyses of US subsidiaries in Switzerland, and, in contrast, those in Germany and the UK, on the whole support the propositions that distinguish between industrial relations and education and training-related host-country effects.     

The performance of logistics service providers and the logistics costs of shippers: a comparative study of Finland and Switzerland

This article analyses the market dynamics between shippers in the manufacturing sector and logistics service providers (LSPs) in Finland and Switzerland, focusing on factors that are characteristic of the demand and supply sides of logistics markets such as performance indicators, financial ratios and relevant macroeconomic indicators. The development of shippers’ logistics costs over a period of ten years is analysed as a proxy for cost savings. This is mirrored against the development of the LSPs’ financial performance. The share of logistics costs in the turnover of Finnish shippers is consistently higher than that of their Swiss peers, whereas Finnish LSPs perform financially better than their Swiss peers. This implies that Finnish and Swiss logistics markets differ in terms of market power and interdependence between shippers and LSPs. The results indicate that the sub-regional interdependence and market power of LSPs, caused by a lack of competition, explain some of the differences in logistics costs.