Systemic risk in Europe: deciphering leading measures,common patterns and real effects

The paper studies salient features of systemic risk in a sample of 22 European (EU and non-EU) countries during January 2010–March 2016. Building on a novel dataset and conducting an empirical horse race, we determine pivotal systemic risk measures for the sample countries. SRISK and volatility indicator tend to lead other metrics, followed by leverage. In contrast to the conventional wisdom, composite systemic risk measures aggregated with the aid of principal and independent component analysis perform worse. The leading systemic risk measures exhibit a high degree of connectedness. The VIX index, TED spread, the Composite Index of Systemic Stress (CISS) and long-term interest rates underlie their dynamics. Two clusters within the sample are identified, with CISS and long-term interest rates being crucial to distinguish between them. There is only scarce evidence for causal linkages between systemic risk and industrial production in the sample countries, based on the concurring results of standard and nonparametric Granger causality tests.     

EU Enlargement and the Portuguese Economy

The main focus of the present paper is on the emerging and likely future trade effects of enlargement. Though our particular concern is with Portugal, we set the scene by comparing the trade structures of the 10 countries of Central and Eastern Europe (i.e. the eight CEE accession states plus Bulgaria and Romania) – including an analysis of the individual cases of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland – with those of the EU15 as a whole, and with those of the 4 EU cohesion countries. The elimination of trade barriers between incumbents and accession states will have two trade‐related effects on EU incumbents: an increase in bilateral flows with the CEEC and a shift effect as the CEEC displace some incumbent exports to EU markets. The first effect is likely to be strongest for those incumbents for which there is a strong overlap between their export structure and the import structure of the CEEC. Portugal emerges as one of the economies with the least overlap. The displacement effect, we conclude, is likely to be particularly strong in the case of Portugal, given the high degree of similarity between Portuguese exports and those of the CEEC. Portugal appears to be ‘being squeezed from below’ in that, for the majority of its traditional export sectors, the CEEC became progressively more competitive during the second half of the 1990's. Portuguese specialisation was increasingly confined to low‐technology, low‐added‐value sectors with declining demand, as strong FDI inflows to the CEEC led to an increasing preponderance of more dynamic sectors in their export structures. Thus, Portugal is also being squeezed from above. This suggests that there may be substantial industrial disruption, in response to which labour‐market flexibility and dynamic entrepreneurial response is crucial. Intersectoral mobility is generally easier the more highly educated the workforce – an indicator on which Portugal scores poorly. The Portuguese labour market, however, displays a high degree of flexibility, consistent with its long lasting low rate of unemployment. Continued flexibility will help minimise these likely adjustment costs. Besides the trade and industry effects, other topics considered in the paper include the implications of enlargement for Portugal's ability to attract FDI, the likely consequences for Portugal of inward migration from the CEEC to the EU, and the implications of enlargement for Portugal's budgetary relations with the rest of the EU.     

The role of organizational culture in the relationship between leadership and organizational commitment: an empirical study in a Greek organization

The aim of this paper is to explore the nature of relationships between organizational culture and leadership behaviours in affecting employees' commitment to their work organization. Building on organizational commitment literature, this study used a survey methodology. Empirical evidence was obtained from 300 employees working in a large Greek service company. The analyses indicated that the culture orientations examined served as mediators in the relationship between leader behaviour and followers' affective and normative commitment to the organization. The findings also indicated that continuance commitment is a two-dimensional construct; the ‘personal sacrifices’ dimension was found to be related to organizational culture and transactional contingent reward. This research paper has key messages for practitioners contributing to the fields of commitment, organizational culture, leadership and human resource management.     

Environmental factors and satisfaction in a specialty store

Given the intense competition experienced in the sector, retailers have been designing strategies to create an environment conducive to consumer satisfaction and purchase, particularly in supermarkets and hypermarkets. This paper develops a conceptualization of customer satisfaction based on field data collected in a specialty store, focusing on the relative importance of the environmental factors on satisfaction. The results show that the most important environmental determinant of customer satisfaction is the variety of products. The help from employees, lighting, layout and design also stand out from the set of stimuli considered.     

Organizational rejuvenation for knowledge exploitation: Exploring corporate entrepreneurship in an MNE

The purpose of this paper is to study how organizational rejuvenation is used to increase and support knowledge exploitation in multinational enterprises. Using case-study data to explore the theoretical arguments, interesting findings emerge. The main finding is that entrepreneurial activities in IT industry enable organizational rejuvenation with repercussions beyond the focal function. Other findings relate to how corporate entrepreneurship activities provide possibilities for continuous knowledge exploitation within the MNE and how entrepreneurial groups inside MNEs form the foundation from which the organizational rejuvenation originates. Finally, the form of organizational rejuvenation studied embraced both structural and behavioral changes. The authors acknowledge an equal share in the development of this article.     

Sustainability and Accounting Education

Given the growing debate concerning the use of alternative presentation formats in corporate financial reporting, Volmer's recent paper in this journal is to be welcomed (June, 1992). Volmer conducts an experiment which compares students' perceptions of graphical and numerical presentations of financial information. From this he concludes that (i) graphical presentations improve the communication of financial information, and (ii) the integration of accounting research and teaching constitutes an effective alternative teaching method. We agree with the general message of Volmer's paper, and hope that subsequent studies will build on his exploratory work. This comment suggests a number of areas for future developments. These concern the literature base, experimental design, corporate practice and educational implications.     

Sell‐Side Analyst Bias When Investment Banks Have Privileged Access to the Board

Research on analyst bias typically identifies affiliation with reference to a subset of the mandates that could give rise to incentives for bias in a multifunction investment bank. This paper develops a new measure of affiliation based upon the UK practice of corporate broking. An advantage of this approach is that affiliation is no longer restricted to isolated equity issuance events as it is an ongoing activity. This research shows that prior US evidence regarding the “Global Settlement” is robust to this new measure and application in the United Kingdom rather than solely the United States. The paper uses a hazard rate methodology focusing on the timeliness of revisions to address selection bias concerns.     

Mortality Among the Elderly in Sweden 1988–1997

By replacing the exponential growth in a Makeham function with a straight line at very high ages, graduated mortality rates gives an acceptable adherence to observed data.