Managing work-generated emotions at home: An exploration of the “Bright Side” of emotion regulation

This conceptual paper applies the construct of emotion regulation to the work-family interface in order to further expand our understanding of the positive aspects of emotional labor. Contrary to the predominant view that emotional labor is stressful and produces primarily harmful outcomes, we propose that emotion regulation in work-to-home transitions reduces an individual's work-family conflict, enhances job satisfaction, and improves their spouse's family satisfaction. Indeed, work stress can cause employees to remain preoccupied with work-related thoughts and negative moods when moving from work to family settings. We argue that social display rules positively influence an individual's engagement in emotion regulation to meet family role demands. Drawing on current research on role boundaries, emotion regulation, emotional labor, and work-family conflict, we offer testable propositions to encourage future research on the beneficial aspects of emotion regulation in research on work and family. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in closing.     

Occupational choices of working children in Bangladesh

The article looks into the determinants of occupational choices of working children in Bangladesh. Using data from 6668 Bangladeshi working children aged 5 through 14, the article estimates several binary and multinomial logit regressions, separately for boys and girls. The article confirms that most children work in the informal sector where formal sector’s jurisdiction and regulations are absent. Specifically, the article finds that children are least likely to work in the service occupation and are more likely to work in the textile sector. The findings highlight the diversity in the occupational distribution of child workers by gender and show how their individual and family characteristics influence occupational choices. The service sector, which comprises of mostly maids, is a hidden sector. This sector makes children vulnerable to abuse. Thus, it is suggested that policy makers need to come up with effective legislations that would protect the children who work in the ‘hidden informal’ sector.     

Spatial income and public capital: a case of a Spanish region

The objective of this paper is to analyse major determinants of disposable per capita income at a local municipality level for a territory of Spain: the Valencian region. A cross-sectional spatial study for an averaged period (2010–2013) will allow us to control for intraregional correlation, paying special attention to the role of real public investment and its possible effects on disposable personal income. A reference framework for economic and social policymakers will be provided by the specification of the model.     

Sustainable fisheries development in the tropics: trawlers and licence limitation in Malaysia

Sustainable fisheries development requires sound fisheries management. Area licence limitation programmes may form the cornerstone for most tropical multispecies fisheries management programmes. An empirical analysis of Peninsular Malaysian fishing trawlers is used to design an area licence limitation programme that conforms to the multiproduct production technology, and cost and revenue structures to best accommodate condtions of asymmetric information between the regulator and fishing vessels.     

The apparel industry in the post‐Multifiber Arrangement environment: A review

The apparel industry contributes significantly to the economic development of many developing countries. Between 1974 and 2004, the Multifiber Arrangement (MFA) heavily regulated this industry. Since the total abolition of the MFA in 2005, competition in apparel trade has increased many folds and some developing countries, such as Bangladesh and Vietnam, have been successful while some others, such as Mexico and the Philippines, are struggling to meet this challenge. This study presents a historical evolution of the apparel industry before and after the introduction of MFA and analyzes the factors that enhance apparel export performance during the post‐MFA period. The analysis reveals that cheap labor, firm size, product quality, foreign ownership, availability of local input materials, new product development, preferential market access and working conditions are the major factors that help gaining competitiveness in apparel exports during the post‐MFA period. These observations provide new insights to the policy makers and business managers to formulate and implement appropriate policies in order to become competitive in apparel exports.     

Exchange-rate variability and industry trade flows between Malaysia and Japan

This research investigates the exchange-rate risk sensitivity of Malaysian bilateral trade flows with its important trading partner, Japan. To this end, bounds testing approach to co-integration is applied using industry level data over the monthly period 2000–2013. Findings suggest that above the one-third of the total co-integrated export (43.86%) and import (34.54%), industries experiences the ringgit/yen variability effect in the short run. However, this effect sustains in relatively less number of export (14.03%) and import (32.73%) industries in the long run. It is interesting to note that exchange-rate risk boosts trade flows in the majority of these affected industries.     

Monetary policy shocks and the dynamics of agricultural commodity prices: evidence from structural and factor‐augmented VAR analyses

Fluctuation in commodity prices is a significant and timely issue to be studied. This study is to examine the impact of monetary policy and other macroeconomic shocks on the dynamics of agricultural commodity prices. The major contributions of this study are twofold. First, unlike other studies that use indexes, this study analyzes the commodities individually, affording the inclusion of commodity‐specific fundamentals such as the level of inventory—an important determinant of commodity price—in a structural VAR framework. Second, it exploits a rich data set of agricultural commodity prices which includes commodities that are usually overlooked in the literature, and extracts a common factor using the dynamic factor model to understand the extent of comovement of the prices and to gauge the extent to which macroeconomic shocks drive the “comovement” in a factor‐augmented VAR (FAVAR) framework. The findings show that monetary policy, global economic conditions, and the U.S. dollar exchange rates play an important role in the dynamics of agricultural commodity prices.     

State vs. market in search of good governance: The case of Sri Lanka telecommunications industry reforms

This research investigates the relationship between the state and the market under independent regulation that accompanied telecommunications‐sector reforms in Sri Lanka. It assesses whether the telecommunications regulator has been functioning in line with market principles. Building on the findings of an exploratory study undertaken for a doctoral degree in 2006–07, the study finds that the regulator has been performing under a plethora of constraints: institutionally, politically, legally, and socially. Institutionally, the regulator is affected by its own internal problems, a lack of capability and capacity, and a complexity created by the other agencies. Politicians have become exceptionally powerful, affecting every function of the regulator. Legal provisions have proven inadequate. Socially, regulatory functions are affected, causing delays. It is important to highlight the fact that these are interconnected; one creates or influences another. The findings suggest that the environment in which the regulator operates affects the credibility and effectiveness of a regulatory framework. The authors, with their extensive expertise, argue that such blockages could be overcome through various measures proposed in the conclusion. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Management control systems in inter-agency collaboration: a case study

This paper explores the nature of management control systems in an inter-agency collaborative arrangement. A Western Australian case study (the PECN project) highlights strategies for successfully providing services to people with highly complex needs, which could not be achieved by siloed attempts by individual agencies. This paper makes a significant contribution by providing evidence on multiple control systems which combine both horizontal and vertical controls to achieve better outcomes. The authors found strong evidence of trust-based relationships among the agencies which appeared to have a positive effect on inter-agency working.     

Information technology and its changing roles to economic growth and productivity in Australia

In this paper we describe our investigation of the role of investment in information technology (IT) on economic output and productivity in Australia over a period of about four decades. The framework used in this paper is the aggregate production function, where IT capital is considered as a separate input of production along with non-IT capital and labour. The empirical results from the study indicate the evidence of robust technical progress in the Australian economy in the 1990s. IT capital had a significant impact on output, labour productivity and technical progress in the 1990s. In recent years, however, the contribution of IT capital on output and labour productivity has slowed down. Regaining the IT capital productivity therefore remains as a key challenge for Australia, especially in the context of greater IT investment in the future.