The significance of human capital and social capital: professional–client relationships in the Asia Pacific

Professionals working in professional service firms rely on their human capital and social capital to deliver value in their service provision and delivery to clients. However, research to-date is limited regarding investigations into the relationship between human capital and social capital at the level of professional–client relationships, particularly in the context of the Asia Pacific where changes in business environment, professional jurisdiction and ways of working have been commonplace for many firms operating in this region. In this study of Australian corporate law firms and client organizations, our results reveal significant evidence of relationships between social capital and human capital in the form of knowledge acquisition, where social capital facilitates professionals’ capacity to acquire knowledge from clients and increases the overall amount of knowledge acquired. More research on social capital and knowledge acquisition has the potential to advance our understanding of the influence of professional–client relationships on human capital development in the Asia Pacific.     

Religion,social capital and business bankruptcy in the United States, 1921–1932

We consider the value of social capital that derives from membership in a church. American states with larger churchgoing populations had lower business bankruptcy rates from 1921 to 1932, and states in which the churchgoing population was concentrated in few churches had business bankruptcy rates that were lower still. Both voluntary and involuntary bankruptcy were lower in states with higher church membership. The evidence suggests that church membership acted on bankruptcy through a safety net mechanism and not solely through indicating a preference for honouring commitment.     

Human capital and youth emigration in the “new normal”

Every society's future lies in its youth, which can be considered a critical milestone for a nation's sociopolitical development. This research examines the young population attempting to identify and explores the students' perceptions about migration, their postulates, and the reasoning why so many students ultimately choose to emigrate. Data were collected in a questionnaire survey of 206 randomly selected students from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some different multivariate analyses were performed to test the hypotheses. Other results were further discussed. Results show that the country's legal framework is a key reason for the prevailing poor living standard. This has resulted in a large number of youths leaving the country. Overall, both the legal framework (for both young entrepreneurs and women) and the overall standard of living (quality of life, well-being, salary, retirement, and education) are correlated with people choosing to emigrate. Furthermore, theoretical and practical implications are discussed. As far as we know, this is the first empirical study on this particular region that investigates the youth migration trends considered an important milestone for human capital development.     

Saving–investment correlations and the mobility of capital in the OECD countries: New evidence from cointegration breakdown tests

ABSTRACT

This study examines the long-run relationship between domestic saving and investment and undertakes an in-depth account of short-period breaks in the cointegrating vector for 24 OECD countries. The analysis is carried out in a time-series setting to take a country-by-country account of the evidence. The end-of-sample cointegration breakdown tests are performed on both FMOLS and FIML estimates of the model. The cointegrating relationship between domestic saving and investment prevails and the implied intertemporal budget constraint holds for most countries. The cointegration breaks down for some countries during the sub-sample periods. The results are generally consistent across various cointegration breakdown tests.     

Disruptive innovation and the creation of social capital in Indonesia’s urban communities

Abstract

Existing research on social capital has primarily focused on examining the outcomes of social capital, whether these are about individual, organizational or even societal outcomes. However, much research is still needed in terms of examining how social capital is created. We contribute to filling this gap by examining the ways in which social capital is created in urban communities in an emerging economy. Social capital, in this study, is viewed as being created as a consequence of an organization’s disruptive innovation. We analyse the context of Go-Jek, a rather newly established service firm in Indonesia, and examine how the disruptive innovation of Go-Jek’s service provision influences the creation of social capital in terms of social connectedness, trust, and shared understanding, in Indonesia’s urban communities.     

Rhetorics of saving–investment correlations and the international mobility of capital: A survey

This study surveys the literature on saving–investment (SI) correlations and international mobility of capital (IMC) generated over more than three decades since the 1980s. Several studies have shown the presence of paradoxically high SI correlations for the developed countries with observed high IMC, and low SI correlations for the developing countries with observed low IMC. The studies accounting for structural breaks in model parameters provide dominant support for the decrease in SI correlations and increase in IMC after the switch from fixed to flexible exchange rate regime and the removal of policy restrictions on capital flows. The intertemporal optimisation approach to current account and the open-economy growth and dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models mainly provide theoretical predictions and suggest that it is possible to find high SI correlations in the wake of high IMC. The increases in international capital flows have been the natural corollary of the growth of international trade in goods and services and increases in foreign direct investment flows. It is these factors, rather than international trade in capital market securities (bonds and equities) driven by the diversification benefits of financial portfolios per se, that have been the key levers of international financial flows.     

Nationalism,social capital and economic empowerment: SANLAM and the economic upliftment of the Afrikaner people, 1918–1960

At the beginning of the twentieth century the Cape-based Afrikaner elite used their social networks to establish an insurance company to address their business aspirations as well as wider economic empowerment needs of poor Afrikaners. This contribution explores the operating dynamics of social capital of an elite portion of society to benefit the wider Afrikaner community, thereby establishing new networks among Afrikaners. By the second half of the twentieth century the South African Life Assurance Company (Sanlam) developed from a local Cape-based enterprise to a strong diversified corporation extending social capital from the limited elite group to Afrikaners in the wider context of South Africa. The networks among Afrikaners were the key to the successful development of Sanlam and associated companies.     

Socially optimal North–South capital transfer and technology diffusion

We study North–South capital transfer and the diffusion of embodied technologies within a framework of intertemporal global welfare maximization. We show saddle path stability and characterize the steady state. We then examine the transition path by running numerical experiments based on realistic data. As a result, technology diffusion will succeed if the absorptive capacity is sufficient which requires sufficient investment. While a large share of capital is allocated to the South in early periods, this share declines in later periods when the South has caught up in terms of technologies.     

Corporations in the US and Europe 1790–1860

Sylla and Wright's statistics of new US special incorporations in 1790–1860 show that they exceeded those in France, Prussia and the UK, but the aggregate paid-up share capitals of extant companies were not so far apart in 1860. The UK continued to lead corporatisation, as measured by the ratio of corporate share capital to GDP. The distinctive features of US corporations were that they were small, diverse and numerous, while UK corporations were larger, more capital-intensive, less prone to disappear and had more dispersed ownership.     

Can labour market institutions mitigate the China syndrome? Evidence from regional labour markets in Europe

This paper investigates how labour market regulations alter the adverse impact of rising import competition from China in European local labour markets between 1997 and 2006. The paper constructs measures of regional exposure to Chinese imports based on previous literature and on regional labour market frictions exploiting involuntary labour reallocations. Taking into account the endogeneity of import competition and its interaction with labour market regulations, the paper finds that regions more exposed to the rise of China have suffered from a reduction in manufacturing employment shares. This shock grows larger with regional labour market frictions; hence, it exacerbates the impact of trade shock on employment. Moreover, the paper finds that employment in public services, and not in construction or private services sector, absorbed the negative shock to the manufacturing sector. The unemployment rate, the labour force participation rate and wages in all sectors are unresponsive to import competition from China.     

Globalization,technical change and the skill premium: magnification effects from human – capital investments

This paper shows that endogenous adjustments in the composition of labour supplies magnify the effects of changes in commodity prices on the measured skill premium under quite plausible conditions. These composition effects arise from decisions of individuals with heterogeneous inherent abilities about acquiring human capital. They reinforce the well-known Stolper?–?Samuelson effect on the measured skill premium in countries with a sufficiently high relative supply of skilled labour, but compensate them otherwise. As a result, the model can account for the observation of a worldwide increase in the skill premium during the last two decades.     

New rules – old games? Social capital and privatisation in France, 1986–1998

This article focuses on social capital among the French business elite, the period under study coinciding with the implementation of privatisation programmes in France from 1986 to 1998. The Chirac government (1986–1988) sought to change the rules of the economic game, the political aspirations invested in privatisation centring on the free play of market forces and competition, to which the programme purported to reconcile the public at large. The article reveals how privatisation, far from breaking with the past by widening participation in economic life, strengthened the ties that bind the French establishment elite through the concentration of power in ‘hard cores’ of stable investors in newly privatised firms. High levels of social capital within the French national business system ensured that members of the ruling elite, united by multiple ties and similar backgrounds, connived, as before, to manipulate institutions and situations in their perceived collective interest.     

Your Call: eBay and Demand for the iPhone 4☆

The iPhone 4 was introduced into the UK market on 24^th June 2010 to significant consumer interest. Demand revealed itself exceeding supply through conventional channels, since there was very extensive activity in terms of bidding on eBay auctions for the product. We monitored all UK eBay transactions on the iPhone 4 for six weeks from introduction, with total transactions amounting to around £1.5m. We analyse determinants of winning bids in terms of characteristics of the phone, the seller, and the buyer. Our most notable and novel finding relative to previous studies is a very significant premium over list price being paid in almost all cases, with positive uplift factors including whether the phone was unlocked and whether it could be sold overseas. Demand fell over time, as evidenced by lower achieved prices, but the fall in price was relatively modest. A significant premium of 32GB over 16GB versions is revealed.     

The dyadic structure of exchange partners' governing-agency social capital and opportunism in buyer–supplier relationships

Extant literature on opportunism examines its antecedents in dyadic relationships in business networks. With firms also developing relationships with government agencies, these connections can influence firms' propensity for opportunism in business exchanges. This study investigates how the governing-agency social capital on both sides of the buyer–supplier relationship affects firms' opportunism tendency toward their counterparts. In particular, we divide the governing-agency social capital of both parties into two dimensions: the asymmetry of governing-agency social capital and joint governing-agency social capital. We postulate that both the asymmetry of governing-agency social capital and joint governing-agency social capital promote the focal firm's propensity for opportunism through dyadic power and network power, respectively. Moreover, we propose that both dimensions interact to magnify each other's impact on the focal firm's propensity for opportunism. We test the hypotheses using 322 matched data of buyer–supplier dyads in China. Empirical results provide support for the research hypotheses.     

Human capital signals and entrepreneurs’ success in equity crowdfunding

Grounding on research about the role of signals in the attraction of equity finance, this paper studies the effects of diverse human capital signals on entrepreneurs’ success in equity crowdfunding. We argue that the human capital of an entrepreneur, who launches (alone or with other teammates) an equity crowdfunding campaign to finance her start-up, constitutes a set of signals of the start-up quality. The impact of each human capital signal on entrepreneur’s success in equity crowdfunding depends on both signal fit with start-up quality and signal ambiguity. Empirical estimates on 284 entrepreneurs who launched equity crowdfunding campaigns indicate that only entrepreneurs’ business education and entrepreneurial experience, two human capital signals that have both a good fit with start-up quality and a low degree of ambiguity, significantly contribute to entrepreneurs’ success in equity crowdfunding.     

Web 2.0, social capital and work performance in service companies: the employees’ view

Web 2.0 networks have provoked a revolution in the last years due to their capacity to modify human relationships, particularly in business contexts. Social capital, as a crucial intangible asset embedded in Web 2.0 networks, can be extremely helpful to build and optimize personal and organizational power or resources. This exploratory study empirically analyzes the use of Web 2.0 networks for work-related purposes under a new perspective: the perception of Spanish service companies’ employees. Results show a reasonable employee use of Web 2.0 applications with work-related purposes, and identify the main benefits from them and relevant differences in their use.     

Is green the new gold? Venture capital and green entrepreneurship

Small Business Economics - We test whether born-to-be-green represents a signal toward potential venture capital (VC) investors on a sample of Italian, independent, unlisted, high-tech...