Reputational risk as a factor in the offshore location choice

Drawing on extant literature and eight case firms, this paper explores reputational risk as an essential factor in selecting offshore locations. By categorizing and aggregating insights from the empirical data and the relevant literature, the paper identifies country reputational risk as a factor determining the firm's propensity to exclude specific offshore locations. However, its effect is contingent upon managers' interpretation of the critical elements of the business environment in a particular country. Thus, the study contributes by demystifying the role of ‘managerial inputs’, which are often neglected within international sourcing literature. Further, reputational risk is delineated as a higher-order construct comprised of three lower-order constructs: unethical practices, institutional weakness, and quality concerns. Our findings distinguish reputational risk from the CSR framework because the dimensions of reputational risk identified in this study transcend beyond the governance, ethics, environmental and social spheres of CSR. This way, the study contributes to a holistic representation of reputational risk that can allow researchers to match its broad predictors with broad outcomes.     

The association between transformational leadership in German hospitals and the frequency of events reported as perceived by medical directors

This paper aimed to evaluate how transformational leadership behaviour is associated with patient safety culture in a hospital context. In line with findings from other high-hazard industries, we predicted that in hospitals, executives’ perceived emphasis on transformational behaviour would positively influence the frequency of events reported by staff on the front line of service provision. Our hypothesis was confirmed by fitting a multivariable regression model to a sample of 507 medical directors of German acute-care hospitals. Results revealed transformational leadership in hospitals was a significant predictor of the reporting frequency of safety events, as perceived by medical directors. Our findings highlighted the critical role that executive behaviour plays in staff participation in patient safety initiatives. Preventing patients from unintended harm can then be traced back to the organisational level that is the farthest away from direct patient interaction. Consequently, these findings may provide guidance for hospitals aiming to raise employees’ awareness of patient safety and prevent unintended patient harm prospectively.     

Prospects for Labour in Global Value Chains: Labour Standards in the Cut Flower and Banana Industries

Global value chain (GVC) governance is central to analyses of labour's strategic options. It frames the terrain on which labour campaigns and institutions — such as private social standards and international framework agreements — contribute to the social regulation of value chains. GVC concepts help to emphasize how power in the employment relationship transcends organizational boundaries, as well as how industrial power is shifting from the sphere of production to that of consumption. Based on extensive case studies of the banana and cut flower value chains, we explore the implications of GVC restructuring for the scope and form of labour rights strategies.     

Mapping Research Topics and Theories in Private Regulation for Sustainability in Global Value Chains

The globalization of production and trade has contributed to the rise in complex global value chains where the reach of state regulation is limited. As an alternative, private regulation, developed and administered by companies, industry associations, and nongovernmental organizations, has emerged to safeguard economic, environmental, and social sustainability in producer countries and along the value chain. The academic literature on private regulation in global value chains has grown over the last decade, but currently few major reviews of the research have been undertaken. This paper examines peer-reviewed research in the relevant disciplines published in academic journals up to December 2011. Our goal is to identify and classify the topics and theories in the global value chain literature. We conclude that the number of articles explicitly examining private regulation, in a global value chain context, is relatively small when considering the importance and growth of these chains in the world’s economy. We also conclude that agriculture, forestry, and apparel manufacturing are the most often studied economic sectors; in contrast, other sectors, such as the information, communication and technology, with their complex global value chains, and often problematic environmental and social conditions, are understudied.     

Optimal execution strategies in limit order books with general shape functions

We consider optimal execution strategies for block market orders placed in a limit order book (LOB). We build on the resilience model proposed by Obizhaeva and Wang (2005 Obizhaeva, A and Wang, J. 2005. Optimal trading strategy and supply/demand dynamics, Preprint Available online at: http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/faculty/obizhaeva/OW060408.pdf (accessed 16 February 2009)[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) but allow for a general shape of the LOB defined via a given density function. Thus, we can allow for empirically observed LOB shapes and obtain a nonlinear price impact of market orders. We distinguish two possibilities for modelling the resilience of the LOB after a large market order: the exponential recovery of the number of limit orders, i.e. of the volume of the LOB, or the exponential recovery of the bid–ask spread. We consider both of these resilience modes and, in each case, derive explicit optimal execution strategies in discrete time. Applying our results to a block-shaped LOB, we obtain a new closed-form representation for the optimal strategy of a risk-neutral investor, which explicitly solves the recursive scheme given in Obizhaeva and Wang (2005 Obizhaeva, A and Wang, J. 2005. Optimal trading strategy and supply/demand dynamics, Preprint Available online at: http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/faculty/obizhaeva/OW060408.pdf (accessed 16 February 2009)[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). We also provide some evidence for the robustness of optimal strategies with respect to the choice of the shape function and the resilience-type.     

Overeducation,undereducation, and the theory of career mobility

The theory of career mobility (Sicherman and Galor, Journal of Political Economy, 98(1), 169–92, 1990) claims that wage penalties for overeducated workers are compensated by better promotion prospects. Sicherman (Journal of Labour Economics, 9(2), 101–22, 1991) was able to confirm this theory in an empirical study using panel data. However, the only retest using panel data so far (Robst, Eastern Economic Journal, 21, 539–50, 1995 Robst, J. 1995. Career mobility, job match, and overeducation. Eastern Economic Journal, 21: 539–50.  ) produced rather ambiguous results. In the present paper, random effects models to analyse relative wage growth are estimated using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. It is found that overeducated workers in Germany have markedly lower relative wage growth rates than adequately educated workers. The results cast serious doubt on whether the career mobility model is able to explain overeducation in Germany. The plausibility of the results is supported by the finding that overeducated workers have less access to formal and informal on-the-job training, which is usually found to be positively correlated with wage growth even when controlling for selectivity effects (Pischke, Journal of Population Economics, 14, 523–48, 2001).     

Training Systems and Labor Mobility: A Comparison between Germany and Sweden*

The mobility effect of general and specific training is a key issue in the debate on the design of educational systems. Using data from two retrospective life‐history surveys, we compare general school‐based vocational training and specific apprenticeship training with regard to inter‐firm, inter‐occupational and inter‐industrial mobility. The results show that workers with school‐based degrees display greater occupational mobility, while no difference in firm and industrial mobility can be discerned. This suggests that apprenticeships do not eliminate job search at labor market entry, that they reduce occupational mobility, and that responsiveness to structural change is similar under both training systems.