International franchising: Opportunities for China's state-owned hotels?

The hotel industry in China faces global competition. Most of the state-owned hotels have struggled during the period of transition from a planned economy to a market economy. Furthermore, international franchising hotel chains have entered China with their different operation modes. Could the franchising hotels bring opportunities for state-owned hotels? In an attempt to answer this question, the researchers carried out a study of state-owned independent hotels and state-owned franchised hotels to analyze their external and internal business factors, their intentions to join international franchise operations and the international hotel franchisors in China. The research technique used was qualitative. Two rounds of in-depth interviews were conducted. Content analysis was used in the data analysis. Results indicate that the majority of state-owned independent hotels have intentions to join an international franchise operation in the next 5 years. It also identified major factors affecting the franchising of state-owned hotels in China. However, franchising may not be attractive to those hotels that want to keep their management culture and characteristics. Implications of the study were discussed. Recommendations were provided to the state-owned hotels. Future research studies have been suggested to examine the relationships between franchisors and franchisees.     

Effects of North American BSE Events on U.S. Cattle Prices

In May 2003, a beef cow in the Province of Alberta tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease). In December of 2003, a dairy cow in the state of Washington also tested positive for BSE. These discoveries disrupted cattle and beef trade in North America and major export markets. We examine the effects of these two North American BSE events on U.S. fed and feeder cattle prices. The results indicate that the demand for U.S. beef was affected to a much greater degree by the reactions of foreign governments to the BSE announcements than by the reactions of U.S. households.     

Investigating the psychometric properties and assessment capabilities of the short version of the Health and Safety Executive’s Management Standards Indicator Tool

Abstract

Policies on psychosocial hazards at work are gaining importance. Subsequently, a number of indicators have been proposed to assess the phenomenon such as the Management Standards Indicator Tool (MSIT). This study focuses on the short-version of the MSIT and aims to evaluate the convergent and discriminant validities of the measures, explore whether these measures can be represented by a higher-order factor of work-related stress and to contribute towards better understanding of its concurrent validity. Data were obtained from 452 full-time managerial-grade employees working in a multinational manufacturing plant in Malta. The study shows that the original 25-item MSIT measures have convergent and discriminant validity issues. Following the removal of five items, the revised indicator demonstrated good construct validity and was well-represented by a higher order factor. Additionally, the second-order factor of the modified MSIT mediated the relationship between psychosocial safety climate and psychological well-being and slightly interacted with engagement to explain improved well-being in the mediational pathway. This study suggests that the modified MSIT is effective in assessing psychosocial factors in stress-management interventions. The MSIT has good prospects to be further adopted in the process of developing better policy and standards for the improvement of psychological conditions at work.     

Alternatives to polynomial trend-corrected differences-in-differences models

A common problem with differences-in-differences (DD) estimates is the failure of the parallel-trend assumption. To cope with this, most authors include polynomial (linear, quadratic…) trends among the regressors, and estimate the treatment effect as a once-in-a-time trend shift. In practice, that strategy does not work very well, because inter alia the estimation of the trend uses post-treatment data. An extreme case is when sample covers only one period before treatment and many after. Then the trend’s estimate relies almost completely on post-treatment developments, and absorbs most of the treatment effect. What is needed is a method that i) uses pretreatment observations to capture linear or nonlinear trend differences, and ii) extrapolates these to compute the treatment effect. This article shows how this can be achieved using a fully flexible version of the canonical DD equation. It also contains an illustration using data on a 1994–2000 EU programme that was implemented in the Belgian province of Hainaut.     

Non‐performing loans and the harmonisation of extrajudicial collateral enforcement across Europe

The European Union plans on partially harmonising the extrajudicial enforcement of collateral in order to reduce the stocks of nonperforming loans. This article discusses the proposed regime and its background. After examining its impact on the national secured transactions law of Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and The Netherlands, the authors comment on the appropriateness of the proposed harmonisation.     

A price index for Canada, 1688 to 1850

This paper presents the first price index for any region of Canada that spans from the colonial era to the mid‐19th century. I constructed it using prices from the account books of religious congregations with estates throughout modern‐day Quebec. It represents a substantial improvement over previous indexes thanks to the consistent price quotations in the source material, the high frequency of observations for many goods, the vast number of goods and the inclusion of numerous non‐agricultural and non‐food goods. Its price trends differ mildly from those of existing but less‐comprehensive price indexes. I link this new index with post‐1850 indexes to create a 328‐year price index for Canada.     

The (Over)Cost of Capital: Financialization and Nonfinancial Corporations in France (1961–2011)

ABSTRACT

The term ‘financialization’ is often used to describe the major changes that occurred in the macroeconomic regimes of most developed and, to a lesser extent, emerging economies since the beginning of the 1980s. In the present paper, we propose a reappraisal of the notion of the cost of capital and subsequently argue that financialization in France has increased the cost of capital for nonfinancial corporations with new standards of financial profitability. We introduce a measurement for what could be called the over-cost of capital and describe how the evolution of this additional financial burden may explain the slowdown in the pace of capital accumulation, and thus the drop in French macroeconomic performance observed for the past 30 years.     

Product Placement in Mass Media: A Review and Bibliometric Analysis

This article provides a comprehensive and systematic review of the product placement literature in order to map the thematic development of product placement research, help researchers understand the current research status, and suggest directions for future research. A pool of 874 publications related to product placement in mass media was retrieved from the Web of Science, Scopus, EBSCOhost, and Google Scholar databases. Bibliometric and network analyses were used to identify the leading journals, scholars, and publications to capture information about emerging issues and to map the development of product placement research. Three major clusters of product placement research were identified: (1) basic concepts, fundamental research frameworks, and empirical studies on product placement in movies and television programs; (2) empirical studies on product placement in games, especially focusing on children and food product placements; and (3) empirical studies on the effects and underlying mechanisms of product placement disclosures. This article concludes by suggesting a future research agenda for product placement research.     

Measuring the efficiency of assembled printed circuit boards with undesirable outputs using data envelopment analysis

The printed circuit board (PCB) assembling production process is generally optimized to ensure very low levels of errors (defects) so as to produce the higher quality product. The evaluation of efficiency of different types of PCB (cards) could help the management in identifying the quality of assembly process to work out appropriate interventions to prevent failures. This study uses the technique of data envelopment analysis to assess the efficiency of cards across all assembly units as well as within its respective assembly unit in the presence of undesirable outputs under the assumption of weak disposability. In our case, the three types of errors, viz., machine error, manual errors and other errors that occur in the defective assembled PCBs are considered as the undesirable outputs. In-depth analysis has been carried out through jackknifing analysis to check the robustness of DEA efficiency scores. The best practice group of cards for each inefficient card has been identified which eventually facilitate the management to derive the level of undesirable outputs to be reduced and desirable output to be improved so as to achieve the level of efficiency at par with its practice group.