How Productive Is Workplace Health and Safety?

In this paper, we investigate the causal impact of workplace health and safety practices on firm performance, using Danish longitudinal matched employer–employee data merged with unique cross‐sectional representative firm survey data on work environment conditions. We estimate standard production functions, augmented with workplace environment indicators, addressing both time‐invariant and time‐varying potentially relevant unobservables in the production process. We find positive and large productivity effects of improved physical dimensions of the health and safety environment, specifically, “internal climate” and “monotonous repetitive work”.     

Determining the cointegrating rank in nonstationary fractional systems by the exact local Whittle approach

We propose to extend the cointegration rank determination procedure of Robinson and Yajima [2002. Determination of cointegrating rank in fractional systems. Journal of Econometrics 106, 217–242] to accommodate both (asymptotically) stationary and nonstationary fractionally integrated processes as the common stochastic trends and cointegrating errors by applying the exact local Whittle analysis of Shimotsu and Phillips [2005. Exact local Whittle estimation of fractional integration. Annals of Statistics 33, 1890–1933]. The proposed method estimates the cointegrating rank by examining the rank of the spectral density matrix of the d$d$th differenced process around the origin, where the fractional integration order, d$d$, is estimated by the exact local Whittle estimator. Similar to other semiparametric methods, the approach advocated here only requires information about the behavior of the spectral density matrix around the origin, but it relies on a choice of (multiple) bandwidth(s) and threshold parameters. It does not require estimating the cointegrating vector(s) and is easier to implement than regression-based approaches, but it only provides a consistent estimate of the cointegration rank, and formal tests of the cointegration rank or levels of confidence are not available except for the special case of no cointegration. We apply the proposed methodology to the analysis of exchange rate dynamics among a system of seven exchange rates. Contrary to both fractional and integer-based parametric approaches, which indicate at most one cointegrating relation, our results suggest three or possibly four cointegrating relations in the data.     

The cointegrated vector autoregressive model with general deterministic terms

In the cointegrated vector autoregression (CVAR) literature, deterministic terms have until now been analyzed on a case-by-case, or as-needed basis. We give a comprehensive unified treatment of deterministic terms in the additive model $X_t=\gamma Z_t+Y_t$, where $Z_t$ belongs to a large class of deterministic regressors and $Y_t$ is a zero-mean CVAR. We suggest an extended model that can be estimated by reduced rank regression, and give a condition for when the additive and extended models are asymptotically equivalent, as well as an algorithm for deriving the additive model parameters from the extended model parameters. We derive asymptotic properties of the maximum likelihood estimators and discuss tests for rank and tests on the deterministic terms. In particular, we give conditions under which the estimators are asymptotically (mixed) Gaussian, such that associated tests are ${\chi }^2$-distributed.     

Market Integration of Fish in Europe

This paper examines market integration between fish species in Europe, taking international market integration into account. Based on Juselius (2006) , market integration is found both on the fresh and frozen markets. The Law of One Price is in force on the fresh market within the segments of flatfish and pelagic fish. Assuming transitivity, a loose form of market integration is identified between 13 fresh and seven frozen fish species, and the relative prices are found fairly stable. The policy implication is that catch limitation measures implemented through the Common Fisheries Policy have limited and conditional effects on prices, because of the large size of the market and varying market integration. Therefore, many fishermen are not ‘compensated’ by price increases as a result of catch limitation measures.     

Public Policy and Attitudes on Tax Support for Live Artistic Communications Media

Abstract . Hypothesized direct and interaction relationships among the dependent variable willingness to pay more taxes for support of live artistic communications media and the independent variables of past attendance, education, income, leisure time, and liberalism-conservatism are tested. Past enjoyment probably makes people more favorable to tax support. Social policy implications of the results are discussed.     

An investigation of cultural cohesion in a community bank

This study examines the culture of a medium-sized community bank based in the Western United States. The study aims to identify the organization's culture and then measure the level of cultural cohesion that exists three years after a major cultural campaign was launched. The cultural characteristics the organization valued most highly were integrity, willingness to serve the customer and teamwork - all components of the official bank document on culture. Interestingly, the analysis uncovered some significant value differences among different employee groups and also employees and management; differences which can affect firm performance levels. The analysis also revealed that changing the culture in an organization does not necessarily lead to cultural cohesion.     

The Path to Service Encounter Performance in Public and Private ‘Bureaucracies’

This article examines the evolution of building societies against a background of environmental change. By the application of specific analytical measures developed by Ansoff five distinct periods of change can be isolated. Key events in the environment have become progressively more novel, less predictable and costlier to deal with, which, in turn, has necessitated both operational and strategic redirection.     

Investigating CSR communication in SMEs: a case study among Danish middle managers

This paper seeks to analyse small‐ and medium‐sized enterprise (SME) managers' representations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and CSR communication in a corporate communication perspective. The basic question is: how strategic is CSR communication in SMEs? Corporate communication and CSR theories are used to establish an ideal typology of CSR concepts informing an analysis of qualitative data in the form of interviews with three middle managers in two Danish SMEs. A CSR communication model published earlier by the authors is challenged from a SME perspective. Results from an Internet‐based questionnaire survey of 1071 SMEs pave the way for the analysis. Our analysis shows that SME managers clearly have an inside‐out approach to CSR, with a strong emphasis on the internal (corporate culture) dimension. However, SMEs and/or SME managers tend not to communicate externally about the CSR activities of the company. Based on these findings, the paper argues that CSR communication in SMEs is challenged by the global economy and is under revision. The contribution of the paper is to provide an insight into SMEs' present stage in relation to a possible future approach to strategic CSR communication. The paper also reminds us that SMEs have no interest in turning their local and authentic practice into a forced marketing and branding exercise, leaving them with an artificial picture of who they are and strive to be in the future. They should keep on acting locally but force themselves to think globally.     

Practitioner-Based Theory Building in Organizational Ethics

Understanding of organizational ethics phenomena requires complex understanding of organizational practices in their real world contexts. We can try to understand and build theory about these complex real world practices from the points of view of: (1) a traditional deductive, ethics literature-based, literature gap formulation approach; or, (2) an inductive, practitioner-based literature gap formulation approach. This consideration of inductive, practitioner-based versus deductive, literature-based literature gap formulation is related to the discussion concerning “engaged scholarship” and relationships and gaps between theory and practice in organization studies [Van De Ven, 2007, Engaged Scholarship: A Guide for Organizational and Research Knowledge (Oxford University Press, NY)]. However, there is an important difference with respect to the key issue of ethics literature versus practitioner-based literature gap formulation. This article offers examples of the two different approaches and makes comparisons between them. Implications for practice-based organizational ethics theory building, Ph.D. education, and public intellectual work are considered.