Emiratisation: determining the factors that influence the recruitment decisions of employers in the UAE

The Arab Gulf's labour market is being overhauled. The private sector is increasingly being ‘obliged’ to more actively support nationalisation programmes. This study seeks to quantitatively determine the recruitment decisions of the employers. We collated the views of just under 250 UAE-based HRM personnel, in order to identify which factors (social, cultural, economic, regulatory, educational and motivational) are most significant as cited in the relevant literature. Not having the necessary educational qualifications and high reservation wage demands were found to have less of a bearing than does the perceived lack of vocationally orientated motivation and the ambiguities over the differing rights afforded to employees.     

LIQUIDATION OF AN INDIVISIBLE ASSET WITH INDEPENDENT INVESTMENT

We provide an extension of the explicit solution of a mixed optimal stopping–optimal stochastic control problem introduced by Henderson and Hobson. The problem examines whether the optimal investment problem on a local martingale financial market is affected by the optimal liquidation of an independent indivisible asset. The indivisible asset process is defined by a homogeneous scalar stochastic differential equation, and the investor's preferences are defined by a general expected utility function. The value function is obtained in explicit form, and we prove the existence of an optimal stopping–investment strategy characterized as the limit of an explicit maximizing strategy. Our approach is based on the standard dynamic programming approach.     

Yardstick competition in a federation: Theory and evidence from China

In this paper, we test empirically for competition among Chinese provinces embedded in a centralized political system. To motivate the empirical work, we adapt Besley and Case's model (American Economic Review, 1995) to a model of yardstick competition ‘from the top’. In this model, the central government (rather than local voters) creates competition among local officials by rewarding or punishing them on the basis of relative performance in providing public services. Our theoretical framework predicts that, in this context, the central government spurs strategic interactions among governors with similar environments as voters do in democratic countries. Then, for the first time in our knowledge, by estimating a spatial lag dynamic model for a panel data of 29 Chinese provinces from 1980 to 2004, we provide empirical evidence of the existence of such public spending interactions. We propose a rigorous empirical framework which takes into account heterogeneity, endogeneity problems and spatial error dependence. The results tend to confirm the existence of strategic interactions among geographically and economically close Chinese provinces, operating in a vertical bureaucratic control system.     

Scenarios based on sustainability discourses: Constructing alternative consumption and consumer perspectives

This paper describes a research based scenario project on sustainable consumption in Belgium. In the Consentsus project a scenario method was developed and tested by the research team to assess scenarios both as learning and participation tools for sustainable consumption. By using a decomposition analysis a solid ground was laid to adequately summarize three guiding principles on how to reach a (more) sustainable consumption: eco-efficiency, de-commodification and sufficiency. These ‘pure’ strategies – showing significant similarities with concrete discourses – were then translated into a participative process: two expert-driven workshops and interim research yielded three future images of food consumption as well as indications on their boundary conditions. These three images reflect significantly diverging approaches on how to organize practices related to food consumption. This structural diversity allowed us to address an archetypical consumer, i.e. a generalized consumer based on the specificities of the scenarios. These consumer perspectives do not aim at indicating real (even potential) groups, but aim at illustrating how the environment of interactions around the consumer fundamentally changes throughout the three sustainability discourses. It is argued that thinking through alternative modes of consumption is of importance to support and elucidate debate in governance arenas that address transitions towards a more sustainable consumption.     

Cost-effectiveness analyses using real-world data: an overview of the literature

Abstract

Objectives: Real-world evidence (RWE) may provide good estimates of absolute event probabilities and costs in patients in actual clinical practice, but their use in decision-analytic models poses many challenges. A literature review based on a systematic search was conducted to summarize the limitations of using RWE in decision-analytic modeling reported in the literature, but also to identify existing recommendations about real-world modeling.

Methods: A literature search was performed on Medline and Embase databases, as well as relevant websites. No restrictions in language or geographical scope were imposed.

Results: A total of 14 references were included. RWE is recognized as a valuable source of data for market access and reimbursement, and as a complement to clinical trial evidence for treatment pathways, resource use, long-term natural history, and effectiveness. The main limitations identified in the literature were: confounding bias, missing data, lack of accurate data related to drug exposure and outcomes, errors during the record-keeping process, protection of private data, and insufficient numbers of patients. Although most submission guidelines recognized the potential biases associated with RWE, guidance on the appropriate methods to deal with these biases, and approaches to review different relevant evidence to inform model development, were scarce. Several initiatives have attempted to provide guidance on the use of RWE in decision-modeling.

Conclusions: RWE is likely to be particularly valuable for informing healthcare policy-makers when formulating appropriate treatment pathways, encouraging the optimal allocation of scarce resources, and improving aggregate patient outcomes. However, little guidance is available on the relative merits of using efficacy and/or effectiveness evidence in Health Technology Appraisal submissions. Further research is needed to better understand these methods and their potential applications in a broader range of scenarios and simulation studies, and their impact on economic modeling.     

IT self-employed workers between constraint and flexibility

This research focuses on the degree of work autonomy which IT self-employed workers enjoy. It relies on quantitative and qualitative data. We found that strategic autonomy (ability to choose one's work objectives) is linked to individual characteristics: education and expertise, whereas operational autonomy (ability to choose the adequate methods) is correlated to contextual factors such as the type of clients and the kind of contracts.     

A Basic Quantification of the Competitive Implications of the Demise of Arthur Andersen

Andersen’s exit from the already-concentrated market for auditing services is shown to have increased market concentration and audit fees. Changes in market concentration are found to be significantly related to changes in audit fees, suggesting that the structure-performance hypothesis is applicable to the post-Andersen accounting industry and that the “Final Four” accounting firms may have exercised market power in this environment. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of Andersen’s exit from the market.     

Dancing in the office: A study of gestures as resistance

Following the art-body-ethics turn in management studies we use dance as an analogy in order to explore how the body can resist organisational control in office work contexts. We argue that in office work gestures can be a site of post-recognition resistance. Drawing on two art videos and on dance studies, we explain that this is operated either through arrest or through flow. In fact aesthetic experiments in gesturing disrupt the work rhythm needed for organisational efficiency and enforced by organisational control. This allows us to contribute primarily to the literature on resistance in organisation studies and relatedly to the growing literature on dance in organisation studies through demonstrating how dance can be a source of resistance.     

Are incentives without expertise sufficient? Evidence from fortune 500 firms

Agency theory predicts that incentives will align agents' interests with those of principals. However, the resource‐based view suggests that to be effective, the incentive to deliver must be paired with the ability to deliver. Using Fortune 500 boards as an empirical context, this study shows that the presence of directors who lack top‐level experience but own large shareholdings is negatively associated with firm value, an effect that increases in the number of such directors. Firm value rises after such directors depart from boards, with the greatest increases occurring when many of these directors leave. While agency theory highlights the importance of the right incentives being in place, this research suggests that this can be ineffective if the right resources are not also in place. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.