Gender and entrepreneurial success: evidence from survey data

A wealth of studies have contributed to the literature on gender differences in entrepreneurial success, but most lack key controls that aid in determining that success. Scale of the entrepreneur’s business is often not accounted for, and no studies to the author’s knowledge approach the gender comparison by specifically utilizing a sample of entrepreneur-only managed businesses. This allows for a direct comparison between individual entrepreneurs’ performance by gender, without the confounding heterogeneity that workforces may introduce. Data are taken from a national US survey of individuals, and model specifications include a number of important but oftentimes unavailable controls that have never before been used in conjunction. Female and male entrepreneurial success are statistically equal after controlling for risk preferences, intelligence, start-up capital, prior industry experience and hours worked at the business. Alternative specifications and sensitivity checks confirm and expand on these results.     

Human capital and firms’ innovation: evidence from emerging economies

ABSTRACT

We explore the relationship between human capital and firms’ innovation in emerging economies. Most papers consider the formal knowledge developed in R&D laboratories as a major source of innovation. However, a critical portion of knowledge required for innovation resides in human resources and is created outside any formalised R&D activity. We consider that, to improve their technological capabilities, firms should invest in different forms of human capital, namely highly educated workforce and experienced managers, but also in strategic human resource (HR) practices aimed at developing human capital by increasing employees’ firm-specific technical skills and competences. Besides looking at the type of innovation outcomes, we place greater emphasis on the strategies of innovation development, as these should signal an improved firms’ ability, not just to innovate, but to put their own creative effort in the development of innovation. Our results contrast with the traditional view of firms in emerging economies as mainly relying on the external acquisition of innovations, by showing their actual ability to develop new technologies. In this respect, HR practices aimed at fostering employees’ learning and autonomy at work appear more important than the educational attainment of workers, whilst the experience of managers does not seem effective.     

Something old and something new: comparing views about nanotechnology and nuclear energy

This paper provides a review and evaluation of different food‐risk prioritization and management frameworks that have been developed by governmental food‐safety authorities, regulatory agencies and non‐governmental institutions worldwide. It emphasizes the need for a new science‐ and risk‐based system approach to microbial risk prioritization. We find that most studies and projects argue for a systematic and multi‐disciplinary approach to risk prioritization but nevertheless lack it. Human and public health issues have constituted the core focus of food‐risk analysis in food‐borne risk prioritization studies, where the majority of studies use the concept of disease burden. Even though it is widely recognized that economic and market‐level impacts of microbial hazards and preventive interventions to reduce food‐borne risks are crucial to the performance of industries and markets, they are almost never accounted for in risk prioritization frameworks.     

Siting technological risks: cultural approaches and cross-cultural ethics

Are European national risk prevention regulations reflecting different cultural attitudes towards risk? This article replies positively to this question by elaborating the results of an investigation led between 2004 and 2008 by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. The investigation focused on the European national implementations of Article 12 of Directive Seveso II on Dangerous Substances (96/82/EC) and aimed at providing an overview of different methodological approaches to the matter of land use planning in areas subject to the risk of major accidents. Five countries were selected for in‐depth analysis and comparison. This article focuses on one aspect of their different approaches to land use planning in at‐risk areas that was not considered by the European investigation: the influence of national cultural backgrounds on the implementation of Article 12 within the respective national legislations and practices. To explain whether different cultural orientations may have affected them, the article refers to one cultural index in particular, namely the uncertainty‐avoidance index (UAI) proposed by the Dutch sociologist Geert Hofstede. This index provides a key of reading of the different methodological orientations adopted for regulating land uses in the vicinity of hazardous establishments in these countries; by applying it, the study demonstrates that different cultural attitudes towards uncertainty may be a determinant factor in the approaches to and the regulation of the matter of hazardous facility siting. In the conclusions, the regulatory as well as ethical implications of this finding are discussed.     

Financial freedom and bank efficiency: Evidence from the European Union

This paper investigates the dynamics between the financial freedom counterparts of the economic freedom index drawn from the Heritage Foundation database and bank efficiency levels. We rely on a large sample of commercial banks operating in the 27 European Union member states over the 2000s. After estimating bank-specific efficiency scores using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), we develop a truncated regression model combined with bootstrapped confidence intervals to test our main hypotheses. Results suggest that the higher the degree of an economy’s financial freedom, the higher the benefits for banks in terms of cost advantages and overall efficiency. Our results also show that the effects of financial freedom on bank efficiency tend to be more pronounced in countries with freer political systems in which governments formulate and implement sound policies and higher quality governance.     

The impact of job security on job satisfaction in economic contractions versus expansions

Job security, often measured using the perceived risk of job loss in the near future, is a significant determinant of job satisfaction. We posit that the impact job security has on job satisfaction is not only a function of how likely it is that a worker loses a job but also how likely it is that a worker could find another. The effect this has on worker job satisfaction then is different depending on whether perceived job loss occurs (or not) when job openings are scarce or when job openings are plentiful. We use difference-in-differences analysis of the 1997 and 2008 waves from the National Study of the Changing Workforce to show that three measures of job security increase private sector worker job satisfaction, and reduce worker incentives to quit, more when job openings are relatively scarce (during contractions) than when job openings are relatively plentiful (during expansions). We find that our results are strongest among less-educated workers.     

Shotgun mechanisms for common-value partnerships: The unassigned-offeror problem

Shotgun clauses are commonly included in the business agreements of partnerships and limited liability companies (LLCs), but the role of offeror typically remains unassigned. In a common-value, one-sided asymmetric information setting, unequal and inefficient outcomes occur with an unassigned offeror. Experimental results are aligned with our theory.     

Manual dishwashing process – a pre‐assigned behaviour?

Global studies have observed many techniques of manual dishwashing causing different levels of performance and using quite different amounts of water, energy, time and detergent. It is not known, however, if these techniques are pre‐assigned to a person and persist when dishes are washed under different conditions, or are adapted to the specific type of dish‐cleaning process. Here we explored this question in a study with 40 test subjects selected equally from Germany and East European countries by asking them to wash two place settings of dishes with different amounts of soil three times. The results showed that the test subjects did not adapt their washing‐up behaviour to the amount of soil. In general, no significant differences were found in the water, energy and detergent consumption for all test subjects. Only the time used by the German test subjects to wash the fully soiled dishes was significantly longer compared with the dishes with only a quarter the quantity of soil, and no significant difference was observed for all other parts. The only significant difference found between the level of soiling of the dishes was the cleaning result achieved: The less soiled the dishes were, the better the final cleaning result was, and this related to all test subjects. This lends support to the proposition that the consumers did not adapt their washing‐up behaviour to the specific circumstances of the dishwashing job to be done but retained some pre‐assigned behaviour.     

How Do Stock Markets in the US and Europe Price Efficiency Gains from Bank M&As?

This paper examines whether the stock markets price changes in operating efficiency as a result of bank mergers and if the premiums paid by the acquiring banks also reflect these changes. The sample covers mergers and acquisitions consummated in the US and Europe during the period of 1997 to 2003. Changes in cost and profit efficiency are calculated using the non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method 1 year prior and 3 years following the merger announcement. Evidence suggests a significant relation between the announcement-period abnormal returns and the post-merger profit efficiency changes. Results also indicate that bank managers are likely to pay a higher premium for those M&A transactions that can bring about greater efficiency gains, particularly on the profit side. Further, although acquirer shareholders in the US and Europe appear to react differently to the announcement of a bank merger, our results for target shareholders suggest that regional differences might be less important than the degree of capital market development in explaining wealth effects.     

Reforming the Financial Health Care System： The Case of the Republic of Albania

The Albanian health care system is currently in a period of deep transformation as well as the country is reflecting the future reforms after the turbulent development of the most recent years. The admission of Albania among future members of the European Union requires also an innovation in the health care system in order to build a model more compliant with the European performance and standards. These innovations are required also in the managerial approach to the health care and in its financing system. The aim of this paper is to analyze the actual financing model of the Albanian health care sector while highlighting the possible future managerial development. First of all, this article presents a history review of the Albanian health-care system, analyzing the current governance model. The goal of this approach is to describe the starting point of the reform paths for the future policy makers. Afterwards the research underlines the transition from a financing model based on historical public expenditure to a system based on the performance as one of the main innovation in the managerial approach to the health care. The introduction of management thinking will then allow developing a cost-based financing model, an accounting system in the teaching hospital and, finally, a financing system able to pay for services provided by private health care entities. The article then offers also a contribution to policy makers in order to define the ＂paths＂ of the Albanian health care system in the next years.