Komplexität erfolgreich steuern — 27. Österreichischer Controllertag in Wien

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Flexibility in Japanese internal labour markets: The introduction of performance-related pay

The introduction of performance-related pay by Japanese firms, a development known as seikashugi, stands out as the most important adjustment in their management of regular employees. This paper discusses this development and analyses its implications for the logic of Japanese employment practices. Previous analyses and developments in other countries suggest that it could imply a breakdown of the internal labour market, a key feature of Japanese employment practices. However, drawing on theories of institutional change and two studies among Japanese firms in 2002 and 2007, this paper argues that implications have been modest in spite of the appearance of convergence. Enabled by its flexibility and a continued support for the practice of lifetime employment, the Japanese internal labour market has assimilated performance-related pay and shaped its own transformation.     

Budgetary-Neutral Fiscal Policy Rules and External Adjustment

Large external imbalances and fragile fiscal positions have emerged as major policy challenges for the euro area in the financial crisis. The paper analyses whether shifting government purchases between tradable and non-tradable goods could help reduce external fluctuations without large swings in the overall fiscal stance. The policy rules considered are budgetary-neutral in the sense that the overall level of government expenditure is kept constant. We compare the policy rules to fiscal devaluation as a strategy to reduce external imbalances and find that state-dependent changes in the composition of government purchases between tradables and non-tradables can stabilise excessive fluctuations in the event of economy-wide supply and demand shocks. Contrary to fiscal devaluation, the expenditure-shifting rule faces a trade-off between stabilising domestic activity and enhancing household welfare, on the one hand, and reducing excessive fluctuations in external positions, on the other hand. The excess volatility of domestic variables associated less volatility in the external position implies welfare losses for standard specifications of household utility. The adverse welfare effect is absent in the case of fiscal devaluation.     

Challenges for land system science

While considerable progress has been made in understanding land use change, land system science continues to face a number of grand challenges. This paper discusses these challenges with a focus on empirical land system studies, land system modelling and the analysis of future visions of land system change. Contemporary landscapes are contingent outcomes of past and present patterns, processes and decisions. Thus, empirical analysis of past and present land-use change has an important role in providing insights into the socio-economic and ecological processes that shape land use transitions. This is especially important with respect to gradual versus rapid land system dynamics and in understanding changes in land use intensity. Combining the strengths of empirical analysis with multi-scale modelling will lead to new insights into the processes driving land system change. New modelling methods that combine complex systems thinking at a local level with macro-level economic analysis of the land system would reconcile the multi-scale dynamics currently encapsulated in bottom-up and top-down modelling approaches. Developments in land use futures analysis could focus on integrating explorative scenarios that reflect possible outcomes with normative visions that identify desired outcomes. Such an approach would benefit from the broad and in-depth involvement of stakeholders in order to link scientific findings to political and societal decision-making culminating in a set of key choices and consequences. Land system models have an important role in supporting future land use policy, but model outputs require scientific interpretation rather than being presented as predictions. The future of land system science is strongly dependent on the research community's capacity to bring together the elements of research discussed in the paper, via empirical data collection and analysis of observed processes, computer simulation across scale levels and futures analysis of alternative, normative visions through stakeholder engagement.     

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.     

Die sozialen Kosten von Währungsreserven

Ohne ZusammenfassungMit 2 TextabbildungenDer Verfasser, der während der Arbeit an diesem Artikel Research Assistant bei Professor Fritz Machlup, Princeton, gewesen ist, möchte aus Anlaß dieser Veröffentlichung für die dort empfangenen Anregungen ausdrücklich danken.     

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.