THE ROLE OF FEES IN PATENT SYSTEMS: THEORY AND EVIDENCE

This paper reviews the economic literature on the role of fees in patent systems. Two main research questions are usually addressed: the impact of patent fees on the behavior of applicants and the question of optimal fees. Studies in the former group confirm that a range of fees affect the behavior of applicants and suggest that a patent is an inelastic good. Studies in the latter group provide grounds for both low and high application (or pre‐grant) fees and renewal (or post‐grant) fees, depending on the structural context and policy objectives. The paper also presents new stylized facts on patent fees of 30 patent offices worldwide. It is shown that application fees are generally lower than renewal fees, and renewal fees increase more than proportionally with patent age.     

Human resource strategy for the new ICT-driven business context

The influence of technology developments on the content and arrangement of work is a recurring theme in many publications. Advances in information and communication technology (ICT) are reshaping internal organizational design and necessitate new types of employee capabilities and behaviour. As will be illustrated, ICT developments create a heightened level of business and market dynamics. Arguably, these dynamics affect the required capabilities and behaviour of employees even more strongly. Similarly, the way businesses are operating, and customer, supplier and business partner relationships are formed, is also affected by the rapid ICT progress. Key drivers shaping the new business context will be addressed. This paper argues that the trends and developments illustrated necessitate revision of traditionally held beliefs and paradigms. Said revision has important implications for the strategy and management of human resources, whereby the focus on employee behaviour is crucial. Two key aspects of a human resource strategy will be discussed, identified as HR alignment and HR enablement. With the focus on employee behaviour, attention should be given to the organizational context, since this context determines employee behaviour. Said context is defined by organizational culture, management practices and various organizational structures and systems. In view of the necessary organizational change associated with the developments illustrated, the importance of consistency and coherence between the elements of the organizational context is stressed. Establishing change under conditions of consistency and coherence is therefore identified as a crucial organizational competence.     

A true and fair view on a harmonious and well-balanced alliance: EAA and EIASM

Allegations of creative accounting by management of listed corporations in the UK do not abate. To the extent that these practices distort the underlying reported financial performance of firms, they conflict with the basic aims of accounting regulation – to provide consistent and comparable financial information to users. Studies have shown that accounting choices are influenced by a range of contracting, financing and operational factors. However, we still know little about what constraints exist against the practice of creative accounting and how effective these are. Issues such as the extent to which the press and analysts are successful in restraining creative accounting, and the role the ‘true and fair view’ principle and auditors play in the prevention of such practices still remain unresolved. This article explores these themes by examining the accounting practices of two UK companies which issued a creative financing instrument. Using a combination of interview, documentary, and financial statement information, the analysis shows that management took advantage of gaps in accounting standards to present a biased picture of financial performance. Auditors did not appear to restrain such practices, and the true and fair view principle, rather than unifying accounting practice, appears to tolerate a range of interpretations. Adverse media publicity appears to be a successful deterrent in the medium term, but since the press are not regulators, their reporting is not necessarily consistent or predictable. UK analysts at the time did not evaluate accounting practices in any significant detail, and thus this potential restraint was not effective. Overall, the influences and constraints on creative accounting are illuminated in this study in a way which provides new insights into our understanding of financial reporting.     

The interplay between learning strategy and organizational structure in predicting career success

The institutionalization of management development and the money spent on it is in sharp contrast to the importance attached to what we know about how managers learn and whether it helps them to get promotion, given the specific organizational context in which they work. We therefore examined career success as a complex positive or negative function of the individual's learning strategy and the organization's structure. One hundred and twenty-seven managers from three government-related organizations completed a questionnaire. A deep learning strategy, characterized by a focus on meaning and relations, fosters career success, especially in a lowly specialized context. In contrast, a surface learning strategy, characterized by a focus on instructions and facts, hampers career success, especially in a highly integrated context. The findings strongly suggest that management development programmes need to be made to measure, taking into account both how the manager learns and how the organization is structured.     

Information shocks and the empirical evaluation of training programs during unemployment spells

We study the role of notifications in the evaluation of training programs for unemployed workers. Using a unique administrative data set containing the dates when information is exchanged between job seekers and caseworkers, we address three questions: Do information shocks, such as notification of future training, have an effect on unemployment duration? What is the joint effect of notification and training programs on unemployment? Can ignoring information shocks lead to a large bias in the estimation of the effect of training programs? We discuss these issues through the lens of a job search model and then conduct an empirical analysis following a “random effects” approach to deal with selectivity. We find that notification has a strong positive effect on the training probability but a negative one on the probability of leaving unemployment. This “attraction” effect highlights the importance of accounting for notifications in the evaluation of active labor market policies.     

Precarious postdocs: A comparative study on recruitment and selection of early-career researchers

This paper investigates how the recruitment and selection for project-based postdoc positions are organised in the current academic landscape characterised by increasing temporary research funding and how principal investigators construct the ‘ideal’ postdoc. Our findings are based on a qualitative comparative multiple-case study in Social and Natural Sciences departments of universities in four European countries. This study contributes to the literature on the neoliberal university and academic staff evaluation by using a systemic, power-sensitive approach that examines how postdocs enter the academic system and how manifestations of precarity are exacerbated. Our critical analysis reveals three manifestations of precarity that the current academic system creates for postdocs, related to control, contracts, and careers. We discuss the effects for individual postdocs and their careers and the quality of knowledge production in public funded higher education institutions.     

Dealing with differences: the impact of perceived diversity outcomes on selection and assessment of minority candidates

Although many strategies have been employed to specifically recruit and select minority employees, the selection rates for designated minority groups are often lower than those for the majority group. Minority candidates with high cultural maintenance (CM) are particularly vulnerable to cultural bias in selection procedures, a process which has proved difficult to change. This paper aims to examine whether these effects may be moderated by recruiters’ perceived diversity outcomes; whether they view diversity as beneficial or threatening to the organization's performance. In an experimental study, participants belonging to a cultural majority group played the role of recruiters (n = 99). Their diversity perceptions were manipulated by asking them to think about, and discuss, either positive or negative outcomes of cultural diversity in the workplace. They were then asked to rate fictional profiles of minority candidates for a job opening. The results confirm that CM of minority candidates has a negative main effect on the ratings they receive in assessment procedures. However, as predicted, this effect is moderated by diversity perceptions. Recruiters who perceive individual differences in the workplace as positive and beneficial, give higher ratings to candidates who maintain their own culture. This provides a promising insight in possible ways to reduce cultural bias in selection procedures.     

Bringing History In: Policy accumulation and general policy alienation

Research mainly looked at problems public professionals have with specific policy programmes. However, policies are not developed in a vacuum. Public professionals are often confronted with (a series of) policy changes, intended to refine, replace or complement other policies. This policy accumulation results in professionals having a certain predisposition towards policies in general. To conceptualize this predisposition, we introduce the term general policy alienation. We investigate whether the earlier developed policy alienation scale can be adapted to measure general policy alienation. Our analyses show that the scale performs satisfactorily. Theoretical relevance, as well as directions for practical applications are discussed.     

Evaluating Adaptive Policymaking using expert opinions

Adaptive Policymaking (APM) is a policymaking approach for dealing involving policy problems with deep uncertainty. Two barriers to getting APM used are that (1) there are few actual examples of adaptive policies developed by policymakers or domain experts, and (2) APM has rarely been used in a real-world policy setting. More specifically, there are questions that remain about the costs and benefits of APM, and the efficacy and performance of adaptive policies compared to traditional static policies. This paper addresses these questions and barriers by reporting on a workshop with experts that was aimed at developing an adaptive policy for the implementation of ISA in the Netherlands. We report on their evaluation of both the process of developing the policy and their assessment of the efficacy of the developed policy compared to that of the current policy under consideration by the Dutch national government. The experts indicated that APM increases the chances of reaching policy goals and makes better use of decision support information that is gathered during the policy analysis process. However, they also indicated that, despite these potential benefits of APM, it may be hard to implement adaptive policies due to institutional issues.