Externalization of employees: thinking about going somewhere else

Externalization of employment relations was a general trend among businesses in the 1990s. As a consequence we observe an increasing use of temporary workers, outsourcing and insourcing. This paper is concerned with the consequences of externalization of employment relations from the perspective of employees. The paper is based on an in-depth empirical study of a corporate adjustment programme in a large government-owned energy producer in Sweden. The company is trying to stimulate internal mobility by means of training programmes, adjusting its workforce to changes in market demand without lay-offs. I argue that externalization of employment relations is not only a matter of temporary, administrative or geographical distance between employer and employee. Instead a complementary form - externalization of responsibility - is suggested. The results may have consequences for the understanding of human resource policies aiming at employability.     

Examining how technology is presented and understood in technology education: a pilot study in a preschool class

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - The aim of the research is to examine how technology is communicated in technology education in relation to humans, society and nature in...     

WHAT DO AUDITORS DO? OBVIOUSLY THEY DO NOT SCRUTINISE THE ACCOUNTING AND REPORTING

Auditors and auditing firms are important actors in the process of institutionalising accounting standards. However, the formal and institutional requirements to de facto ensure professionalism and independence in the Swedish municipal sector have been strongly questioned. The aim of this paper is to investigate and explain how deviations from accounting standards are treated and reported by auditors. The results indicate deficiency in both competence and independence among the auditors. The institutional arrangements in Sweden do not seem to ensure that auditors facilitate and support the implementation of accounting standards.     

Organizing and Disorganizing Strategic Communication: Discursive Institutional Change Dynamics in Two Communication Departments

This article explores the institutionalization of strategic communication as a dynamic interplay between macro- and mesolevel discourses. The change processes in the two cases of this study involved both a reorientation of the purpose of the communication function and a physical relocation of the professionals to a centralized department. In both organizations, the transformation toward a strategic management function failed and the communication professionals are now working in ways similar to those before the change was initiated. The analysis illustrates that the institutionalization of strategic communication is effected by organizational-level processes and mechanisms that are not always controlled by communication professionals. The institutionalization of strategic communication is bound by organizational discourses as well as by the actions of communication practitioners and general managers. The study also shows that macro- and mesolevel discourses influence the ways in which change initiatives are translated and strategic communication effected on an organizational level. Hence, institutionalization processes of strategic communication will comply with management trends but can change direction when these trends are challenged. Our results expose that new ideas or practices of strategic communication are translated discursively within organizations in processes of recontextualization, reinterpretation, and reframing. Consequently, new ideas and practices of strategic communication are adjusted to organizational discourses and organizational settings. The translation of a new idea or practice will therefore change the initial meaning of that same idea or practice. For that reason, institutionalization of strategic communication should not be reduced to a unidirectional process but conceptualized as a dynamic interplay between discourses on different levels that moves institutionalization in multiple directions.     

Choices of savings options related to trust in banks’ competence,benevolence and stability

The study investigates whether beliefs in professional investor skill in conjunction with trust in banks and other fund managers explain choices of options for long-term savings. From questionnaire data obtained for a population-based sample (n=178) and a sample of undergraduates (n=186), two index measures were constructed, one of beliefs in the skill of professional investors and another of trust in fund managers. The trust index was aggregated for the three interrelated components: competence, benevolence and stability. Regression analyses of the likelihood of savings in an actively managed fund showed an expected effect of investor-skill beliefs that was mediated by trust in the fund manager. In addition, self-reported knowledge played a larger role than trust for choices of passively managed index funds and in particular for own investment in stocks.     

Financial Contracts in PIPE Offerings: The Role of Expert Placement Agents

We examine how Private Investment in Public Equity (PIPE) contracts allocate contingent cash flow rights between investors and issuers and the role of placement agents in PIPE contract design. Issuers advised by expert agents agree to more investor‐friendly terms than issuers advised by nonexpert agents. Expert agents appear to help issuers understand the payoff consequences of negotiable terms. Moreover, expert agents allow issuers to negotiate more attractive pricing when they agree to investor‐friendly terms. Issuers earn higher postoffering stock returns when they use expert agents or agree to more investor‐friendly terms. These results suggest that the involvement of expert agents is beneficial to PIPE issuers.     

Stochastic volatility and time-varying country risk in emerging markets

This study suggests an alternative method to estimate time-varying country risk. We first apply a new multivariate stochastic volatility (SV) model to a set of emerging stock markets. To estimate the SV model, we use a Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation procedure. By applying the deviance information criterion, we show that the new model performs well relative to alternative multivariate SV models. We then compute the conditional betas for the different markets and compare the results with an often-used procedure based on multivariate GARCH models. We show that the new multivariate SV model more accurately captures the time-varying nature of country risk. The conditional betas show signs of large variations, indicating the importance of taking time-varying country risk into consideration when managing emerging market portfolios.     

Bargaining structure and nominal wage flexibility

In a model with wage setting by monopoly unions and monetary policy conducted by a central bank, the duration of nominal wage contracts is shown to be u-shaped in the degree of centralization, with intermediate bargaining systems yielding contracts of shorter duration and thus, more flexible nominal wages than both decentralized and centralized systems. The theoretical predictions of the model are tested on OECD data, and there is empirical support for the main results on contract length.     

Misreporting in register data on disability status: evidence from the Swedish Public Employment Service

The issue considered in this study is whether there is misreporting in official data on disability status. While there is a rather large literature on misreporting of self-assessed disability, evidence regarding register data is scant. It seems to be a widely held view among researchers that, since individuals out of work are inclined to respond towards poor health, it would be best to have official data provided by the relevant administrative bodies. But we argue that such administrative data should be regarded with some suspicion, since the administrators also may have incentives to misreport. The empirical evidence, based on a large sample of Swedish jobseekers, suggests systematic misreporting by the Public Employment Service of official disability measures due to incentives to misreport disability.