Stepping Up Economic Structural Readjustment-An Important Move to Make State Economy a Success

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Does Managerial Behavior Determine Farm Technical Efficiency? A Case of Grape Production in an Economy in Transition

This study explores how farmers' managerial behavior in their production planning processes influences the economic performance of their farms, measured through input‐oriented and output‐oriented technical efficiency. A conceptual framework in which differences in managerial behavior were assumed to be due to bounded rationality was developed. The 3‐year means (2006–2008) from a panel data set on grape‐producing family farms in FYR Macedonia were analyzed. Technical efficiency was estimated with the nonparametric data envelopment analysis approach. The impact of farmers' managerial behavior was assessed in a second‐stage regression. The results suggest that bounded rationality in farmers' production planning decisions causes inefficiency. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Peddling in the Antebellum Economy: Precursor of Mass-Marketing or a Start in Life?

Abstract . This article examines the effect of peddling upon industrialization and economic development and the evolution of institutional arrangements in marketing in the Antebellum period. After 1840 peddling in America was undertaken, to an increasing extent, by newly arrived immigrants from Germany who displaced the traditional “Yankees” from the trade. The relationship between peddling and the development of entrepreneurship is explored, along with the special opportunities that peddling provided for economic and occupational mobility in the American milieu. The frequency with which individuals who started careers as peddlers rose to prominence in the fields of merchandising and finance points to the importance of the “schooling” function of this institution for newly arrived immigrants in American folkways, business practices, and commercial possibilities.     

Recruitment Process Outsourcing and Applicant Reactions: When Does Image Make a Difference?

Many organizations transfer parts of their recruitment process to external service providers—often referred to as recruitment process outsourcing (RPO)—to save costs and enhance the quality of their recruitment procedures. However, contrary to the expectations regarding RPO, Wehner, Giardini, and Kabst (2012) found that RPO might cause negative reactions to recruitment procedures among graduates. We extend that study by incorporating a brand equity perspective in examining whether employer image and service provider image counterbalance negative reactions among graduates. Utilizing a scenario‐based, between‐subject design, we obtain results that show that the extent of RPO negatively influences applicant reactions regardless of the employer's or service provider's image. Furthermore, we find negative mediating effects of RPO on job acceptance intention. However, the perceived fit between employer image and service provider image positively influences applicant reactions. Moreover, employer image positively influences employer attractiveness and service provider image positively influences applicants’ satisfaction with the recruitment process. Thus, a strong employer image and service provider image partially compensate for the negative effects of RPO on applicant reactions. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How Can a Phenomenological Approach Innovate Leadership in a High‐Tech World?

The author opines that the litmus test for good or defective leadership can be obtained from the philosophical lens with which a leader approaches the world. A leader who is not rooted in nature will practices a calculative type of thinking and leadership. Because the origin of such leadership is based on illusion, the destiny of such leadership is also projected towards an illusionary vista. Phenomenological logic influences our relationship to space, time, values, and perceptions. Humans are not the central lens epistemology that allows leaders to listen to the protesting environment that they are immersed in. This kind of deep ethics is possible only in the realm of Heidegger's meditative thinking, and it leads to longsighted and deeper answers for a sustainable world. Because humans have tried to make technology absolute, humans now live on products of technology instead of living in our natural habitat. Deep listening to the song of creation will make human beings more compassionate to the natural order and the foresight to fashion a symmetrical relationship with flora and fauna.     

Can employee ownership and human resource management policies clash in worker cooperatives? Lessons from a defunct cooperative

The article analyzes the interaction between employee ownership, HRM policies and practices, and HRM outcomes in what was the world's biggest industrial worker cooperative for decades, and now defunct, Fagor Electrodomésticos. Using longitudinal internal data and detailed interviews with key stakeholders, this paper sheds light on how employee ownership conditioned HRM policies. HRM outcomes—such as job satisfaction and absenteeism—are also analyzed over a long period of time. Chronic nepotism when recruiting new members, failures in the training policy, impoverished and Taylorist working systems, and reverse dominance hierarchies are analyzed as factors that increased free riding and caused low satisfaction and the disengagement of working members. This case study contributes to the literature on HRM and worker cooperatives as it provides some insights that are rarely found in that literature. It also provides guidance to worker cooperatives about increasing the fit between employee ownership and HRM policies and outcomes.     

Research orientation and agglomeration: Can every region become a Silicon Valley?

Not only success stories, such as Silicon Valley, but also non-success stories can inform regional innovation policy. In order to provide a benchmark for regional innovation systems we compare both success and non-success stories. Regional innovation systems differ in structural and functional requirements, because development processes are path dependent. We suggest that regions’ development paths emerge from agglomeration patterns and research orientation. Accordingly, we have developed a typology of regions including (1) their agglomeration patterns (either MAR or Jacobs’ type) and (2) the degree to which their research is predominantly oriented towards obtaining fundamental understanding or addressing considerations of use. We combine qualitative and quantitative data on thirty-six European regions to categorize them according to research orientation and agglomeration, thereby developing a typology. We use this typology and some basic quantitative economic data to see how success and non-success regions are distributed. Our results indicate that a better understanding of how to combine agglomeration patterns with research orientation can guide context-sensitive policy.     

How Do Squatters Deal with the State? Legalization and Anomalous Institutionalization in Madrid

Radical and autonomous urban movements like the European squatters' movement tend to resist integration into the institutions of the state, although particular legal and political conditions in each country or city may significantly alter this tendency. In this article, I examine the controversial issue of ‘institutionalization’ among squatters, focusing on the few cases of legalized squats (social centres) in the city of Madrid. Negotiations with the state authorities and processes of legalization are the major forms of institutionalization involving squatters. However, an anomalous kind of institutionalization also emerges once squats, whether legalized or not, become consolidated and socially accepted. For squatting to have a successful impact, then, depends on both the type of autonomy achieved by squatters and the different outcomes of the processes of institutionalization. The case of Madrid provides empirical evidence that: (1) negotiations with state authorities were very frequent among squatters, but most were defensive; (2) the few cases of legalization were due to specific conditions such as the urban centrality of the squats, single‐issue identities, social network solidarity, favourable media coverage, formal organizations working as facilitators and the squatters' leadership of the process. Furthermore, legalized squats in Madrid preserved a high degree of autonomy, self‐management and ties to other radical social movements. In conclusion, both the legalized squats and the squatters' movement in Madrid as a whole, avoided ‘terminal institutionalization’ and, instead, gave shape to a ‘flexible’ one.     

Can media and text analytics provide insights into labour market conditions in China?

The official Chinese labour market indicators have been seen as problematic given their small cyclical movement and their only partial capture of the labour force. In our paper, we build a monthly Chinese labour market conditions index (LMCI) using text analytics applied to Mainland Chinese-language newspapers over the period from 2003 to 2017. We use a supervised machine learning approach by training a support vector machine classification model. The information content and the forecast ability of our LMCI are tested against official labour market activity measures in wage and credit growth estimations. Surprisingly, one of our findings is that the much-maligned official labour market indicators do contain information. However, their information content is not robust and, in many cases, our LMCI can provide forecasts that are significantly superior. Moreover, regional disaggregation of the LMCI illustrates that labour conditions in the export-oriented coastal region are sensitive to export growth, while those in inland regions are not. This suggests that text analytics can, indeed, be used to extract useful labour market information from Chinese newspaper articles.     

Affective,Normative and Continuance Commitment: Can the ‘Right Kind’ of Commitment be Managed?

This study examines the multi-dimensionality of organizational commitment: affective, normative and continuance (including the sub-components of low perceived alternatives and high personal sacrifice), and how these are differentially related to a set of antecedents and consequences (i.e. turnover intentions, absenteeism and acceptance of change). The results, based on a sample of 505 Australian male fire-fighters, indicate that organizational commitment is best represented by the four-factors of affective, normative, low perceived alternatives and high personal sacrifice. In addition, employees experience different personal, job-related and environmental causes of commitment depending on whether they feel they want to, ought to, or need to remain with the organization. Further, not all facets of commitment enhanced organizational effectiveness, with affective being the most beneficial (i.e. employees are less likely to leave, be absent and are more accepting of change) and low perceived alternatives being the most detrimental (i.e. less accepting of change). The implications of these findings for the management of desirable forms of commitment are discussed.     

Uber Drivers and Employment Status in the Gig Economy: Should Corporate Social Responsibility Tip the Scales?

As the gig economy continues to grow, the legal status of its workers remains a source of confusion and controversy. Uber and other transportation network companies (TNCs) typically disclaim employee status, depriving drivers of social insurance among other benefits. Further, such companies typically deny liability to third party victims for damages due to auto accidents, sexual assaults, and other negative outcomes arising out of their business. Legal and regulatory systems in the U.S. and elsewhere continue to struggle with how to determine and apply a consistent standard as to employee classification. We argue that corporate social responsibility should figure prominently in the equation. Private companies already are required to cover social costs of doing business in a variety of contexts (e.g., workers compensation, family leave, public and workplace accommodations for disabled individuals), and it makes sense that they also should be required to underwrite other important implications associated with employee status as part of their responsibilities to society. This is especially so where, as with Uber and other TNCs, a company’s core profit-making operations include activities that carry the direct potential for causing substantial harm both to individual clients and to the public at large.     

Can a path to peace promote export growth? Evidence from Pakistan and its trading partners

Quality & Quantity - This study has investigated the connection between peace and performance of Pakistan’s export sector. The interstates conflicts, terrorist activities and war elements...     

Can we trust measures of trust? a comparison of results from open and closed questions

Quality & Quantity - Many public opinion surveys compare trust in a number of different information and (mediated) knowledge sources, typically using closed questions with a set of answer...     

Can a workplace have an attitude problem? Workplace effects on employee attitudes and organizational performance

Using the employee opinion survey responses from several thousand employees working in 193 branches of a major U.S. bank, we consider whether there is a distinctive workplace component to employee attitudes despite the common set of corporate human resource management practices that cover all the branches. Several different empirical tests consistently point to the existence of a systematic branch-specific component to employee attitudes. “Branch effects” can also explain why a significant positive cross-sectional correlation between branch-level employee attitudes and branch sales performance is not observed in longitudinal fixed-effects sales models. The results of our empirical tests concerning the determinants of employee attitudes and the determinants of branch sales are consistent with an interpretation that workplace-specific factors lead to better outcomes for both employees and the bank, and that these factors are more likely to be some aspect of the branches' internal operations rather than some characteristic of the external market of the branch.     

Can sustainability report assurance be a collaborative process and practice beyond the ritual of verification?

This study examines the role of assurance for sustainability reporting whether it has the role beyond a verification mechanism for corporate sustainability reporting. This paper looks beyond the discourse about managerial and professional capture in sustainability report assurance practice. Drawing on the in-depth interviews with assurance practitioners for sustainability reporting in the United Kingdom from different professional backgrounds, it provides an evidence-based illustration on how sustainability report assurance service can contribute to more corporate sustainable actions. The findings also highlight the potential influences of the assurance providers on the assurance process and corporate decision-making. The conceptualization of the assurance from the service perspective and of the assurance providers as transformational leaders enables this paper to challenge the current framing of the assurance services as a verification ritual that constraint its impacts and contributions to sustainable development.     

Beyond National Systems,Towards a ‘Gig Economy’? A Research Agenda for International and Comparative Employment Relations

This journal (Volume 29, Issue 3, 2017) included four review essays that focussed on the 6th edition of the book International and Comparative Employment Relations: National Regulation, Global Changes (Bamber et al. 2016). This article reflects on these essays. It begins to develop a novel multi-scalar analytical framework for comparing employment relations internationally, which includes the influence of the institutional dynamics of industrial sectors and global production networks as well as national systems. It also discusses three aspects of the gig economy. Further it proposes a research agenda that would look beyond Varieties of Capitalism approaches, to embrace a more dynamic and diverse array of regulatory systems, including the gig economy and other developments in the world of work and employment relations.     

Can healthcare ever be less than a necessity in MENA countries? A semiparametric estimation of the relationship between healthcare expenditure and GDP

This paper considers the relationship between healthcare expenditure (HCE) and gross domestic product using Baltagi and Li (Ann Econ Financ 3:103–116, 2002) semiparametric fixed effects regression estimator in a sample of 16 MENA countries over the 1995–2012 period. Findings indicate that income elasticity is not consistent but varies with income level and healthcare is a necessity for the non-oil rich countries (non-GCC) whereas it is an inferior good for the wealthiest countries in MENA; Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait. Furthermore, it is found that the infant mortality rate per 1000 live births has a negative effect on per capita HCE in non-GCC countries and the proportion of the population age 65 and above is statistically significant in Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia.