Forecasting core competencies in an R&D environment

This study, carried out in 1998, aimed to develop a method of forecasting core competencies in an agricultural research organization, using the Delphi Technique. First, based on a survey of internal documents and interviews, nine organizational core competencies and their specific components (human competencies) were defined, and expert judges identified. These judges responded to a questionnaire, in which the importance of the future human competencies was assessed and the organization's existing human capacity was evaluated. Means were calculated for both judgements and changes were made in various definitions, based on the experts' comments. Another questionnaire was designed and sent out to an expanded panel of judges to confirm or to revise the priority mean scores obtained or to add scores in the case of competencies that entered later. Factor analysis and reliability scores have demonstrated internal and inter‐competency consistencies. Technological Innovation Management and Geo‐processing appeared as the top priorities and Plant Pathology as the least priority. Priorities for each human competency were also calculated and they have been helpful for decision‐making concerning the selection and graduate training of researchers on the organization studied.     

Consistent solutions for cooperative games with externalities

In order to calculate the worth of a coalition of players, the coalition needs to predict the actions of outsiders. We propose that, for a given solution concept, such predictions should be made by applying the solution concept to the “reduced society” consisting of the non-members. We illustrate by computing the r-core for the case of Bertrand competition with differentiated commodities.     

Implementation by demand mechanisms

This paper introduces a class of implementation mechanisms for exchange economies, calleddemand mechanisms. Each agent “demands” a consumption bundle, and equilibria are situations where each agent receives the bundle he asked for. A simple necessary and sufficient condition for implementation by a demand mechanism is derived.     

Diversified Portfolios in Continuous Time

We study a financial market containing an infinite number of assets, where each asset price is driven by an idiosyncratic random source as well as by a systematic noise term. Introducing asymptotic assets which correspond to certain infinitely well diversified portfolios we study absence of (asymptotic) arbitrage, and in this context we obtain continuous time extensions of atemporal APT results. We also study completeness and derivative pricing, showing that the possibility of forming infinitely well diversified portfolios has the property of completing the market. It also turns out that models where the all risk is of diffusion type are qualitatively quite different from models where one risk is of diffusion type and the other is of Poisson type. We also present a simple martingale based theory for absence of asymptotic arbitrage.     

From feminism to FemInc.ism: On the uneasy relationship between feminism,entrepreneurship and the Nordic welfare state

Feminism in the Nordic countries was primarily formulated in terms of ‘state feminism’. The women’s movement cooperated with feminist government officials and politicians, resulting in societies that can be considered to be the most gender-equal societies in the world. Historically, the state provided for a large publicly-financed welfare sector which made it possible for many women to combine work and family through the state’s implementation of family-friendly policies, while simultaneously providing employment opportunities for many women. However, since the financial crisis of the 1990s, there has been a political change influenced by neo-liberal thought, in which politicians have handed over the welfare state’s responsibilities to the market, and, instead, the politicians have encouraged entrepreneurship, not least among women. Further to this development, there has been a change in emphasis from entrepreneurship (understood as starting and running a business) to entrepreneurialism which, in addition to a belief in the efficacy of market forces, also contains a social dimension where individuals are supposed to be flexible and exercise choice. In this article, we ask whether this entails a change in the feminist project in the Nordic countries, and if so, what the likely consequences are for this project, both in practice and in research. In order to answer this question, we reviewed existing Nordic research on women’s entrepreneurship and examined how this body of work conceptualizes entrepreneurship, gender, the state, and equality. We also considered whether any trends could be identified. We relate our findings to recent changes in government policy and conclude that the current discourse on entrepreneurship challenges, and possibly weakens, state feminism, but we also conclude that this discourse may also provide space for new forms of feminist action, in market terms. We coin the term FemInc.ism to denote feminist action through enterprise and we discuss a number of important challenges that research on this phenomenon is faced with.     

Dynamic elasticities of tax revenue: evidence from the Czech Republic

Tax revenue elasticities with respect to tax bases are key parameters for the modeling of public finances. Yet the existing studies estimating these elasticities for emerging countries disregard the effects of tax reforms on tax revenue, which renders their estimates inconsistent. We introduce a framework for estimating both short- and long-run tax revenue elasticities using quarterly data adjusted for the effects of reforms. Our results suggest that the long-run elasticities in the Czech Republic are 1.4 for wage tax, 0.9 for value added tax, 1.7 for profit tax and 1 for social security contributions. The adjustment process for value added tax and social security contributions is fast, but for the remaining two categories, it is important to distinguish between the short- and long-run elasticities: the initial response of revenue to changes in the bases is weak. In the case of wage tax it takes half a year for the elasticity to surpass unity.     

A state‐level analysis of the economic impacts of medical tourism in Malaysia

In Malaysia, a country that ranks among the world's most recognised medical tourism destinations, medical tourism is identified as a potential economic growth engine for both medical and non‐medical sectors. A state‐level analysis of economic impacts is important, given differences between states in economic profiles and numbers, origins, and expenditure of medical tourists. We applied input–output (I–O) analysis, based on state‐specific I–O data and disaggregated foreign patient data. The analysis includes nine of Malaysia's states. In 2007, these states were visited by 341,288 foreign patients, who generated MYR1,313.4 m ($372.3 m) output, MYR468.6 m ($132.8 m) in value added, and over 19,000 jobs. Impacts related to non‐medical expenditure are more substantial than impacts related to medical expenditure, and indirect impacts are a substantial part of total impacts. We discuss management and policy responses and formulate recommendations for data collection.     

Creation of climate-smart and energy-efficient agriculture in the European Union: Pathways based on the frontier analysis

Creation of the climate-smart agriculture requires efficient resource use and mitigation of the environmental pressures among other objectives. Therefore, it is important to assess the energy efficiency and productivity growth in the European Union's agriculture. This paper analyses the sample of the selected European Union member states. The productive technology including the energy consumption and the resulting greenhouse gas (GHG) emission is constructed. The measurement of the energy efficiency and productivity change relies on the slacks-based measure and Luenberger productivity indicator. The productivity growth was decomposed with respect to the input/output variables and the sources of growth (i.e., efficiency change and technical progress). The average annual productivity growth of 0.79% was obtained for the selected countries during 1995–2016. The highest productivity gains were observed in Lithuania, Denmark, Belgium and Romania (1.27%–1.94% per year). The productivity growth related to GHG emission dominated the contributions by the input/output variables in Lithuania, Denmark, Belgium, Romania, Poland, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Hungary and Estonia.     

Market orientation, employee development practices, and performance in logistics service provider firms

Although the utilization of logistics service provider firms is growing exponentially in business-to-business markets, little is known about what enables some of these firms to perform better than others. Building on the resource-based view of the firm, this research proposes that market orientation and certain employee development practices (service-related training, coaching, and empowerment) influence both employee and organizational performance. The hypotheses are tested using data from 123 large logistics service provider organizations. A multi-survey design was utilized wherein managers as well as the frontline service employees who interact directly with customers represented each organization. The findings suggest that (a) market orientation influences organizational and employee performance, (b) coaching moderates both links, (c) service-related training moderates the link with employee performance only, and (d) empowerment does not moderate either link.