Institutions and Strategies: Trends and Obstacles to Recruiting Workers into Trade Unions in Poland

In this article, we examine the role of institutional context, organizational structures and trade union strategies in tempering membership decline in the number of trade unions in Poland. Empirical data include membership statistics collected for NSZZ Solidarno?? and 54 affiliates of two other largest trade union confederations (OPZZ and FZZ) supplemented by semi‐structured interviews with union leaders. In a decentralized collective bargaining system in Poland, a centralized trade union confederation (NSZZ Solidarno??) can more easily shift resources to efficiently organize workers than decentralized confederations, OPZZ and FZZ, whose development is mostly driven by competing trade unions representing narrower occupational groups. In conclusion, this observation is put in a broader context of the debates about trade union renewal in Eastern Europe.     

Measuring Neighborhood Investments: An Examination of Community Choice

Community choice is a very important household decision, since it represents an investment in community attributes that can have a significant effect on the quality of life of all household members, particularly by influencing the future prospects of children. In this paper, we examine the housing and community choices of migrants to and within Los Angeles County identified in the 1990 5% public-use sample of the Census. Controlling for income, we find that expenditures on housing structure are quite similar across races. However, controlling for income, black and Hispanic households consume significantly less in community attributes than white households.     

Real Estate Returns: A Comparison with Other Investments

Real estate returns, measured unleveraged, have been between those of stocks and bonds over 1960–1982. Due to appraisal smoothing and imperfect marketability, one must be careful about directly comparing measured real estate returns with those on other assets. It is likely, however, that low correlations with stocks and bonds make real estate a diversification opportunity for traditional portfolio managers. In addition, the issue of how various assets are priced is addressed. While stocks are priced primarily on market or beta risk, and bonds are priced primarily on interest rate and default risk, the real estate pricing mechanism includes residual risk and non-risk factors such as taxes, marketability costs and information costs.     

Employee Share Ownership: Safeguarding Investments in Human Capital

Valuable investments in human capital, it has been argued, may be at risk in much the same way as shareholder equity capital. In this paper, we develop and test the hypothesis that employee share ownership (ESO) may be used to encourage and safeguard investments in human capital. Using the Workplace Employee Relations Survey 1998, we examine the empirical link between the likelihood of ESO and the presence of valuable human capital. Adjusted for possible structural influences, empirical evidence suggests considerable support for our hypothesis.     

Walking a slippery line: Investments in social values and product longevity

Corporate sponsorship of events that support social values (e.g., human rights) help firms infuse their products with symbolic meaning, prolonging their life cycle. Yet, higher product prices might spark perceptions that the firm invests in social values for calculative or opportunistic motives, in which case event sponsorship is unlikely to deliver the expected benefits in the form of product longevity. This study explores this potential tension empirically, using data related to sponsored social events, entry prices, and product longevity for a U.S. cosmetics producer. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reverse Mortgages: Contracting and Crossover Risk

A pricing model is developed for a reverse mortgage contract where the borrower receives payments either as a lump sum or in an annuity while the loan balance accumulates as a claim against the house. No underwriting criteria on income are applied. One risk of default is that the borrower will remain in the house after the negatively amortizing loan balance exceeds the value of the house. An explicit pricing model of the reverse mortgage permits the evaluation of this default "crossover" option. Alternative methods involving life insurance contracts and securitization are compared as secondary market channels.     

Investments to create bargaining power: the case of franchising

Hybrid organizational forms such as franchise systems join two or more independent parties under a contract. The ability of each party to achieve its goals depend upon the relative bargaining power in the relationship established by the contract. Using transaction cost economics and Porter's (1980) characterization of sources of bargaining power, this paper argues that the franchisor can make investments in activities such as tapered integration and buyer selection to increase its bargaining power and decrease conflict and litigation in a franchise system. Specifically, tapered integration (owning some units while franchising others), selecting inexperienced franchisees, and employing a long training program are predicted to increase the franchisor's bargaining power and the franchisee's compliance with franchisor standards. An empirical analysis of litigation in restaurant franchise systems supports the theoretical hypotheses. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

论会计电算化中的"反复核、反记账、反结账"

现行会计核算软件,有不少设置了“反复核、反记帐、反结账”功能,这些功能给少数人员处理会计业务带来了一些方便,但其弊端也日益显现。主要表现在三个方面：(1)“反复核、反记账、反结账”的做法违背了现行会计法规;(2)会计软件的这些功能为做假帐、提供虚假会计信息及经济违法犯罪开了方便之门;(3)如果软件功能使用不当,可能会导致系统混乱,当前,会计信恩失真和会计造假的问题已经成为阻碍我国经济发展的毒瘤。而“反复核、反记账、反结账”功能起到了助纣为虐的作用。为此,建议财政部对会计核算软件中“反复核、反记账、反结账”功能做出明确的禁用规定,对会计人员利用这些功能从事做假、造假等违法犯罪活动、制定相应的处罚规定。     

Heterogeneous Investor Sentiment and Institutional Real Estate Investments

Commercial real estate investors differ in their sentiment due to factors such as market expertise, investment strategies and expectations about future market conditions. Focusing on the office market, we investigate whether investors with a multiasset investment focus such as pension funds or insurance companies rely on the sentiment of specialized real estate investors such as public REITs or private developers/owners as source of information in their investment decision‐making. Using disaggregated sentiment measures and vector autoregression (VAR) we find evidence that changes in REIT and private real estate investor sentiment lead to changes in institutional investor sentiment in the suburban office and office REIT market. Our findings suggest that institutional investors rely on the sentiment of specialized real estate investors to make real estate investment decisions. Our study contributes to the existing literature on sentiment in commercial real estate markets by emphasizing the heterogeneity of investor sentiment and introducing a disaggregated sentiment measure. We also contribute to the institutional herding literature.     

The investment opportunity set and disclosure policy choice: Some Malaysian evidence

Recently researchers have shown that certain corporate and accounting policy decisions are related to the firm's portfolio of growth opportunities or its investment opportunity set (ios). This paper augments the research by examining whether the firm's ios is also predictably related to disclosure policy decisions made by the firm. We hypothesize that because agency costs between managers and shareholders are an increasing function of the firm's growth opportunities, managers in high growth firms will be motivated to disclose information about the firm's future prospects in order to commit themselves to particular courses of action and thereby limit their future managerial discretion. Our empirical results indicate that for a sample of 67 Malaysian firms, this is supported only amongst a sample of lower growth firms.The authors are Associate Professor and lecturer, respectively, at the Department of Accountancy, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Correspondence should be addressed to S F Cahan at the above address, e-mail: S.F.Cahan@massey.ac.nz.     

Investments in tracking and tracing systems in the food industry: A PLS analysis

Traceability and related concepts, such as trust and transparency have gained greatly in relevance in food supply chains. This study seeks to answer what exactly determines firms’ investments in traceability systems by developing and testing a theoretical framework using partial least squares methodology and empirical data from 234 companies of the German food industry.The results reveal that high external pressure to implement improves the image of tracking and tracing systems in the sense that their use enhances a firm’s status, increases the intention to use those systems and fosters their perceived usefulness in the eyes of agribusiness executives. The hypothesized negative effect of costs on perceived usefulness and the intention to invest could not be verified.     

农业投入与农业增长的灰色关联分析

运用灰色系统理论建立关联分析模型,对中国1981年～2008年间农业增长及其影响因素：农作物播种面积、农业劳动力、政府财政支农、农业贷款、农机总动力以及化肥使用量等因素进行了定量分析,认为农业投资、农机总动力和化肥使用量是促进中国农业增长的关键性生产要素,并提出了加快我国农业机械化进程,加强政府财政支农投资力度等提高我国农业生产能力的政策建议。     

中国CNG汽车市场发展现状、趋势与策略

截至2008年底,全世界已有80多个国家总计拥有天然气汽车约960万辆,占全世界汽车总保有量的1.16%.发展CNG(压缩天然气)汽车将成为解决能源问题和环境问题的重要途径.中国的天然气汽车产业初具规模,天然气汽车产业体系基本形成.截至2008年底,中国拥有cNG汽车约40万辆,加气站1000余座.我国城市大气污染较为严重,国内油气价差将长期维持,政府对天然气产业发展给予政策支持,天然气供应安全保障度高,产业技术创新体系基本建成,加上市场需求拉动,这六大动力因素将促使CNG汽车用户群成为中国具有很大发展潜力的天然气利用市场之一.为此,建议政府加快出台扶持CNG汽车产业的政策与规划,加快CNG汽车及车用CNG相关关键技术创新,加快规划加气站基础设施建设,积极培育车用CNG市场.     

Exploration and Resource Commitments in Unequal Partnerships: An Examination of Corporate Venture Capital Investments

While established firms' relationships with external ventures may have significant strategic benefits, the realization of such benefits is fraught with considerable uncertainty. The real options and interorganizational learning literatures present an interesting trade‐off for established firms regarding commitment of resources in a partnership. This study seeks to enhance our understanding of how firms manage these trade‐offs when committing resources to external venturing initiatives. We examine the magnitude of resources initially committed by an established firm to an external venturing partnership in the context of corporate venture capital (CVC) investments. While a real options approach suggests that resource commitments should be lowered in the presence of uncertainty regarding realization of benefits, the interorganizational literature emphasizes that resource commitments may be essential for building quality relationships that expedite learning. Corporate investors, who invest in new ventures in order to gain strategic benefits, face higher uncertainty when their investment objectives involve greater exploration. However, greater exploration also increases investors' need to learn from their portfolio ventures. We, therefore, predicted that the degree of exploration would have a U‐shaped relationship with the investor's resource commitment in a venture. We also expected that factors that serve to decrease the investor's uncertainty, i.e., investor experience diversity and venture affiliation to prominent venture capitalists, would moderate the U‐shaped relationship between exploration and resource commitment. The predictions of the study are tested on a sample of 248 initial investments in private ventures made by incumbent firms in the computer, semiconductor, and telecommunications industries between 1996 and 2000. We find some support for our hypotheses. This study contributes to the external venturing literature on CVC investments by examining the determinants of the magnitude of resource commitment to new ventures, and integrates real options perspective, which advocates low resource commitments under uncertainty, with the organizational learning literature, which argues for greater resource commitment to secure partner cooperation. The results of this study reveal interesting insights into how CVC investors manage individual investments to generate strategic benefits.     

Time and Risk Diversification in Real Estate Investments: Assessing the Ex Post Economic Value

Welfare gains to long-horizon investors may derive from time diversification that exploits nonzero intertemporal return correlations associated with predictable returns. Real estate may thus become more desirable if its returns are negatively serially correlated. While it could be important for long-horizon investors, time diversification has been mostly investigated in asset menus without real estate and focusing on in-sample experiments. This article evaluates, ex post, the out-of-sample gains from diversification when equity real estate investment trusts (REITs) belong to the investment opportunity set. We find that diversification into REITs increases both the Sharpe ratio and the certainty equivalent of wealth for all investment horizons and for both classical and Bayesian (who account for parameter uncertainty) investors. The increases in Sharpe ratios are often statistically significant. However, the out-of-sample average Sharpe ratio and realized expected utility of long-horizon portfolios are frequently lower than that of a one-period portfolio, which casts doubt on the value of time diversification.     

Korea's Direct Investments in China: Technology, Experience, and Ownership Factors in Performance

This paper is designed to empirically examine what determines the performance of Korea's foreign direct investment (FDI) in China. Three main determinants are hypothesized to influence the performance of Korea's FDI. They include technology, internationalization experience, and ownership patterns associated with Korea's investments in China. Data were collected from surveys with 91 Korean investors. Our empirical analysis suggests that the labor intensity of technology involved in FDI and the appropriateness of manufacturing technology to the local conditions influence the investment performance. In addition, the results indicate that the internationalization experiences of the Korean investors also affect the profitability of FDI. Another finding of note is that the level of local ownership had a positive impact on performance. But, more interestingly, its effects were moderated by the investor's prior internationalization experiences; in other words, the investors with limited internationalization experiences performed well on a minority ownership venture.     

Real Estate Investments,Product Market Competition and Stock Returns

By limiting operating flexibility, real estate investments are found to increase firm risk, thus expected returns. This study introduces product market competition as a critical determinant of the relation between real estate investments and stock returns. As part of capacity strategies, these investments are generally associated with increased market power and lower cash flow volatility in oligopolistic industries. I present a simple model of oligopolistic competition showing a negative relation between real estate holdings and firm beta, and empirically confirm this prediction. Controlling for product market competition enhances identification of the endogenous relation between real estate investments and stock returns.     

Public Real Estate Limited Partnership Returns: A Preliminary Comparison with Other Investments

Real Estate Limited Partnership (RELP) securities have attracted substantial investor interest, but limited research study. This paper, utilizing a very recent database of actual RELP secondary market transactions, provides preliminary evidence regarding the relative performance of RELP securities, as well as the interrelationships between RELP returns and the returns of Treasury bills and bonds and common stock. Results suggest that RELP returns are negatively correlated with common stock returns, but are positively correlated with the rate of inflation. RELP returns do not consistently exceed the rate of inflation nor do they exceed common stock returns. RELP returns also failed to outperform a broadly-based income property index.     

Measuring the Employer's Return on Investments in Training: Evidence from the Literature

Three components of the literature on measuring the employer's rate of return to investments in employee training are reviewed: (1) studiesthat use large samples of firm-level or establishment-level data collected through mail or phone surveys, (2) studies that use data from one or two companies to conduct an 'econometric' case study, and (3) company-sponsored case studies. The strengths and weaknesses of each of these approaches are evaluated and the estimated returns on investments (ROIs) are compared. The analysis indicates that the employer's return on investments in training may be much higher than previously believed. In order to obtainaccurate information on the employer's ROI from training, researchers should be encouraged to gain access to company databases and to supplement them with data-gathering efforts to collect information on variables needed to isolate the effect of training.     

现行工程监理存在的问题及对策

我国工程建设监理自 1988年开始试点 ,迄今已走过了十多年的历程。实践表明 ,建设监理制的实行 ,对控制工程投资、缩短建设工期、提高工程质量起到了举足轻重的作用。但由于建立及实施建设监理制还处于初级阶段 ,因而在实行过程中难免存在一些有待解决的问题。本文就监理工作中存在的较普遍的问题进行了认真思考 ,并提出了相应对策 ,旨在促进建设监理的规范化管理 ,提高监理成效。现行监理中存在的问题1　业主行为不规范 ,缺乏对监理单位的正确认识业主与监理单位之间是委托与被委托、授权与被授权的关系。双方本着自愿的原则进行合作。但在…