Productivity Gains and Spillovers from Offshoring

Offshoring is generally believed to be productivity enhancing and this belief is underpinned by economic theory. This paper estimates the impact of materials and business services offshoring on productivity in Belgium over the period 1995–2004. It contributes to the literature: (i) by examining this issue separately for manufacturing and market services industries and (ii) by investigating the possibility of forward and backward spillovers from offshoring, i.e. that productivity gains from offshoring feed through to upstream and downstream industries. Results show that materials offshoring has no effect on productivity, while business services offshoring leads to productivity gains in manufacturing. Furthermore, there is no evidence of either forward or backward spillovers from offshoring.     

Motivation in project management: The project manager's perspective

Project motivation is a key aspect to a successful project, yet few studies exist that shed light on this important subject. This article reviews the current literature and theoretical aspects of motivation and provides an analysis of the data. A survey was conducted by soliciting project managers to tell how they perceive their ability to influence motivation. In total, 115 certified project managers responded to the survey. A discussion and suggestions for future research follow the data.     

Transparency in the interbank market and the volume of bank intermediated loans

In the present paper we study the equilibrium interaction through which the interbank market is related to the public lending and borrowing market. It turns out that this interaction is affected by the transparency in the interbank market. Interbank market transparency is modeled by means of more informative signals about future interbank rates. We find that more transparency might increase or decrease the volume of bank intermediated loans in the public market. In particular, the impact of more transparency on the volume of loans depends on the curvature of the marginal cost function of the banking firm. Furthermore, we find that expected profits of the bank are higher when the interbank market is more transparent.     

Top management team nationality diversity and firm performance: A multilevel study

This research reexamines the equivocal relationship between top management team (TMT) diversity and firm performance. Combining upper echelons theory with insights from institutional theory, we establish a new, timely dimension of TMT diversity—nationality diversity—and develop an integrated multilevel framework explaining how its performance implications vary across contextual settings. We find that nationality diversity is positively related to performance; and this effect is stronger in (a) longer tenured teams, (b) highly internationalized firms, and (c) munificent environments. More generally, our research demonstrates that the consequences of TMT diversity depend on the (1) specific attributes of diversity being considered and (2) firm and industry conditions under which strategic decisions take place. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How Do Investors' Expectations Drive Asset Prices?

Based on an extension of the process of investors' expectations to stochastic volatility we derive asset price processes in a general continuous time pricing kernel framework. Our analysis suggests that stochastic volatility of asset price processes results from the fact that investors do not know the risk of an asset and therefore the volatility of the process of their expectations is stochastic, too. Furthermore, our model is consistent with empirical studies reporting negative correlation between asset prices and their volatility as well as significant variations in the Sharpe ratio.