Withdrawal from Foreign Lending in the Financial Crisis by Parent Banks and Their Branches and Subsidiaries: Supply Versus Demand Effects

This study investigates the different channels through which internationally active banks can provide loans abroad. Using data on German banks from 2002 to 2010, we contrast determinants for cross-border lending by the parent bank with lending by affiliates located abroad. We show that lending by parent banks is based almost entirely on supply-side determinants, in particular on bank-specific factors. The more the loans are intermediated by banks’ affiliates located abroad, the more relevant become foreign countries’ demand and risk characteristics. This applies in particular when banks operate via locally focused affiliates - rather than regionally active hub affiliates - as well as when the affiliates have the status of branches as opposed to legally independent subsidiaries. In general, banks with a greater risk aversion withdraw more from foreign lending during the financial crisis, especially following the collapse of Lehman Brothers. However, at a Tier I capital ratio of around 11 %, a further increase in the ratio did not affect lending anymore.     

Attitudes towards capitalism in 34 countries on five continents

The author commissioned a survey on the image of capitalism in 34 countries. In only six of these countries – led by Poland and the United States – do pro-capitalist attitudes dominate. Although approval of capitalism increases when the word ‘capitalism’ is omitted (and instead only described), even then a positive attitude dominates in only seven of 34 countries. The most frequently mentioned criticisms of capitalism are that capitalism is dominated by the rich and that capitalism leads to growing inequality. Respondents with higher incomes and higher levels of education, men, and those who classified themselves as being on the right of the political spectrum are less anti-capitalist or are more pro-capitalist than the population at large in most countries. In 33 countries, anti-capitalists tend to be more conspiracy-minded than pro-capitalists.     

Does e-HRM lead to better HRM service?

Electronic Human Resource Management (e-HRM) is often assumed to increase HRM service quality. This paper empirically examines the relationship between e-HRM and HRM service quality and addresses two calls from recent e-HRM studies, namely to highlight (i) the importance of the interplay between technological and organizational aspects and (ii) the finding that improved HRM service quality is a consequence of e-HRM implementation. We argue that the key drivers of HRM service quality are the strengths both of HRM and of e-HRM. The relationship may be mediated by the frequency of e-HRM usage. In addition, building on Adaptive Structuration Theory, the degree to which mediation occurs may differ within regimes of high and low e-HRM appropriation. We use moderated mediation analysis on a sample of 140 employees of an administration unit to shed light on the drivers of HRM service quality. While we identify strong positive direct effects of HRM strength and of e-HRM strength, we fail to uncover either mediation or contingent mediation effects. The study contributes to e-HRM research by identifying the main antecedent of HRM service quality as HRM strength.     

Innovation labs in the public sector: what they are and what they do?

This article is a first comprehensive attempt to globally map and analyse innovation labs (i-labs) in the public sector. The article analyzes theoretical reasons why i-labs are created in the public sector and tests these assumptions in practice. During the empirical study, thirty-five such organizations all over the world were identified. The research is based on a two-step approach: first, a comprehensive survey was carried out followed by an extensive in-depth interview with the managing figures of i-labs; eleven i-labs responded. The article finds support for the assumptions of external complexity, technological challenges, emulation, and legitimization as reasons behind the creation of i-labs.     

Product market competition,incentives and fraudulent behavior

The present paper studies incentive provision in a model where a manager can affect the firm's stock price by exerting unobservable effort and through costly, deceptive signalling and investigates the role product market competition plays in shaping shareholders' trade-off between inducing effort and fraud.     

Economic systems in developing countries – A macro cluster approach

This study is an attempt to close a gap in the comparative capitalism literature. Studies in that field focus mostly on industrialized countries, discuss economic systems in developing regions separately, and do not provide evidence based on a worldwide sample. We use an established macroeconomic cluster approach to identify economic systems in a worldwide sample of 115 developing and industrialized countries. We use an innovative approach to correct for income-related differences that would otherwise distort the cluster results. The major results are (1) that two broad categories of economic systems exist in developing countries (liberal and coordinated), which mirrors the results for industrialized countries, and (2) that economic systems in developing countries are apparently determined by a mixture of colonial heritage—with the transfer of more liberal institutions in the case of British colonialization—and regional affiliation, which explain differences within continents and between continents.     

Seemingly Unrelated Negative Binomial Regression

This paper discusses the specification and estimation of seemingly unrelated multivariate count data models. A new model with negative binomial marginals is proposed. In contrast to a previous model based on the multivariate Poisson distribution, the new model allows for over-dispersion, a phenomenon that is frequently encountered in economic count data. Semi-parametric estimation is possible if some of the assumption of the fully specified model are violated.