Evaluation of an intervention on socio cultural communication skills of international nurses

International nurses face a myriad of challenges in their transition, adaptation, and integration into the U.S. health care environment. This pilot intervention study examined socio-cultural competence regarding communication in a sample of international nurses working in two community hospitals in southern Nevada. Significant improvement in communication behaviors of the sampled international nurses with regard to socio-cultural skills of communication after the workshop intervention were not found. Similarly, there were no remarkable differences in standardized patient comments for most items on the checklist. However, the sampled international nurses demonstrated some highly desirable qualities such as being very personable, caring, and compassion that appeared to lay a foundation for an effective nurse-patient relationship.     

The role of operational flexibility in the expansion of international production networks

Volatile factor cost developments urge manufacturing firms to increase production efficiency by building up facilities in multiple countries. Differing from previous work that examines the quality of individual locations for investment, the study evaluates the net present value, the growth option value, and the operational flexibility value of the existing production network to predict the establishment of a new site. The results on a sample of 352 German manufacturing firms suggest that the direction, uncertainty, and diversity of labor cost movements in the extant locations influence the propensity to set up a new production subsidiary. Analyzing the international production network after the expansion shows that the new location increases the value of the network regarding these dimensions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Supply-chain corporate venturing through acquisition: Key management team retention

Acquisitions are often used as a way to engage in corporate venturing. The value of these ventures tends to reside in the knowledge and capabilities of the key management team members who have and maintain key inter-organizational relationships. Because their knowledge and/or relationships may be tacit and therefore difficult to transfer, retaining the key managers in the acquired organization is often a critical issue for the human resource management of the acquiring organization. They are also frequently thought to be critical elements in the future performance in global supply chains and therefore, should be a key concern of human resource management after the acquisition has been culminated. Using a unique dataset of corporate acquisitions in supply-chains, we examine how the development of the psychological contract elements affects retention of critical key global managers. We find that higher retention of the key management team members leads to higher performance after acquisition. We also find that the development of the psychological contract has a positive impact on the retention of key managers with global supply-chain relations.     

Unemployment,marriage and divorce

In this article, we examine whether the business cycle plays a role in marriage and divorce. We use data on Spain, since the differences between recession and expansion periods across regions are quite pronounced in that country. We find that the unemployment rate is negatively associated with the marriage rate, pointing to a pro-cyclical evolution of marriage; however, the response of the divorce rate to the business cycle is mixed. Results show the existence of different patterns, depending on geography: divorce rates in coastal regions are pro-cyclical, while in inland regions divorces react to unemployment in a counter-cyclical way.     

Divorce and the Birth Control Pill in the US, 1950–85

This paper explores the relationship between the advent of the birth control pill and divorce rates. Women using the pill can decide when and whether to have children and whether to maintain their attachment to the labor force. This ability may increase women's autonomy, making divorce more feasible. The pill's effects are identified through a quasi-experiment exploiting differences in the language of the Comstock anti-obscenity statutes approved in the late 1800s and early 1900s in the United States. Empirical evidence from state-level data on US divorce rates 1950 to 1985 shows that sales bans of oral contraceptives have a negative impact on divorce. These findings are robust to alternative specifications and controls for observed (such as women's labor force participation) and unobserved state-specific factors, and time-varying factors at the state level. Results suggest that the impact of women's control of hormonal contraception on their autonomy is important in divorce decisions.     

The Effects of Foreign Direct Investment Colocation: Differences Between Manufacturing and Service Firms

Colocation may result in positive performance effects because of agglomeration benefits or in negative outcomes because of fiercer competition. Using the notions of industrial organization economics, this study offers a comprehensive industry‐specific analysis on the performance effects of international colocation. We predict that bigger firms will benefit more from colocation of foreign firms in a host country. Considering industry and home country peers, the analysis suggests that positive effects dominate for manufacturing firms whereas service firms are negatively affected. However, these effects are mitigated by a firm's size in a location. A large‐scale empirical analysis on firm‐level data supports the hypotheses. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trade costs,quality and the skill premium

We develop a monopolistic competition model with non‐homothetic factor input bundles where increasing quality requires increasing use of skilled workers. As a result more skill abundant countries export higher quality, higher priced goods. Using a multi‐country dataset, we test and confirm the findings in Schott ( 2004 ) of a positive effect of skill abundance on unit values identified with US data. We extend the core model with per unit trade costs leading to the Washington apples effect that goods shipped over larger distance are of higher quality. The combination of high‐quality goods being relatively skill intensive with the Washington apples effect implies that countries at a larger distance from their trading partners display a higher skill premium. Simulating our model, we find that a doubling of distance of a country relative to all its trading partners raises the skill premium in a country by about 1.6%.     

On the medical loss ratio (MLR) and sticky selling general and administrative costs: Evidence from health insurers

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) imposed an important constraint on health insurers: if the medical loss ratio (MLR), determined as the ratio of claims paid to premiums collected, declined below certain legislative targets, the insurer would be obliged to rebate a portion of the premiums to the customer. It might be expected that this increase in the MLR would result in a decrease in premium dollars available to cover selling, general and administrative costs (SG&A) and a concomitant decrease in profits. However, there is earlier evidence that SG&A “cost stickiness” presents a counter-effect in this instance: namely, that an increase in SG&A costs per each dollar of revenue increase is more than the magnitude of a decrease in SG&A costs per each dollar of revenue decrease. In this context, this paper offers the first preliminary evidence of the impact of the MLR regulatory change on SG&A cost stickiness in the health insurance industry.Applying the Anderson et al. (2003) methodology, our sample of publicly-traded health insurers shows evidence of significant mitigation of the SG&A cost stickiness after the implementation of the ACA medical loss ratio rules and that in periods of revenue declines, SG&A costs decreased more significantly post-ACA than pre-ACA. These results further illustrate the tension created by regulatory policy designed to improve healthcare cost efficiency and its impact on the profit seeking activities of for-profit healthcare enterprises. Thus, this paper contributes to both healthcare and accounting literature by documenting a significant effect of regulatory policy on managerial decisions regarding cost control.     

Market power in distribution and pass‐through for consumers and producers

We examine the differential pass‐through of import prices into consumer and producer prices. We develop a framework with distribution costs and distribution market power. We then examine pass‐through from import prices to consumer and producer prices in the euro area using the U.S. import price as instrument. We find that pass‐through rates to producer prices are more sensitive to changes in distribution margins than pass‐through to consumer prices. Furthermore, only a portion of import price changes translate into domestic price changes limiting potential consumer benefits from tariff liberalization, with market power in distribution services being one important factor reducing pass‐through.