Succession and firm growth: results from a non-parametric matching approach

The article analyses the relationship between succession and firm performance. Applying a non-parametric matching approach on a panel of roughly 4,000 Austrian family firms we evaluate the impact of actual (past) succession as well as planned (future) successions on employment growth. Analysing succession plans, we do not find a significant difference in employment growth between firms that plan to transfer the firm in the next 10 years and those who do not. In contrast, past succession exerts a significant and positive employment growth effect, which becomes stronger over time.

Gauging the development of innovative capabilities in Accounting and Finance students: can they drive the national innovation agenda?

As automation catalyses the shift from number-crunching to more complex roles spanning risk management and strategic decision-making, it is important that higher education is developing the capabilities for Accounting and Finance graduates to successfully contribute to innovation. The study gauges the development of innovative capabilities among students and new graduates using national data from 2012 to 2015. It identifies gaps in the development of certain capabilities, discusses the implications of these and presents strategies for improvement. Findings will inform stakeholders how to better prepare these graduates to contribute to innovation and, ultimately, improve economic growth and global competitiveness in Australia.     

Stated preferences over job characteristics: A panel study

When making choices over jobs with different characteristics, what trade-offs are decision-makers willing to make? Such a question is difficult to address using typical household surveys that provide a limited amount of information on the attributes of the jobs. To address this question, a small but growing number of studies have turned to the use of stated preference experiments; but the extent to which stated choices by respondents reflect systematic trade-offs across job characteristics remains an open question. We use two popular types of experiments (profile case best–worst scaling and multi-profile case best–worst scaling) to elicit job preferences of nursing students and junior nurses in Australia. Each person participated in both types of experiments twice, within a span of about 15 months. Using a novel joint likelihood approach that links a decision-maker's preferences across the two types of experiments and over time, we find that the decision-makers make similar trade-offs across job characteristics in both types of experiments and in both time periods, except for the trade-off between salary and other attributes. The valuation of salary falls significantly over time relative to other job attributes for both types of experiments. Also, within each period, salary is less valued in the profile case compared to the more traditional multi-profile case.     

Improvisers,Incrementalists and Strategists: How and Why Organizations Adopt ADR Innovations

This article identifies three ways in which alternative dispute resolution (ADR) innovations are adopted by organizations in Ireland: improvisation, incrementalism and strategy, and examines how external and internal influences shape different patterns of ADR innovation. The article contributes to the literature in three ways. First, it highlights the limitations of typologies of innovation based on simple dichotomies, such as reactive/proactive and of prevailing understandings of how ADR may interact with strategy. Second, the article develops an integrated framework for the analysis of influences on patterns of innovation that distinguishes between the features of markets and commercial strategies, organizations, stakeholders and champions and institutions, laws and public policies. Third, the article questions the central premise underlying the literature that a strategic approach to ADR equates with the adoption of conflict management systems.     

The impact of foreign and domestic remittance types and senders on education outcomes

Migration and remittances are very important for Nepal, yet the country continues to be plagued by low financial development. Increases in human capital investments, such as enrollment of school‐aged children, are a possible gain from the country's labor movements, which can be leveraged further through an understanding of the microeconomic processes involved. This study examines how remittances from both household and nonhousehold members affect school enrollment rates for children in Nepalese families. We analyze the positive and negative impacts of migration and remittances separately and consider both the type and location of the remittance sender using the Nepal Living Standards Survey (NLSS‐III) of 9,335 school‐aged children. We find enrollment more associated with an exogenous process and use this to estimate marginal effects in which remittances significantly increase children's school enrollment by about 2% points in most cases. These results suggest policymakers should encourage domestic migration (which allows proximity between senders and recipients of remittances as well as less family disruption).     

Transitioning Design and Technology Education from physical classrooms to virtual spaces: implications for pre-service teacher education

Technology-mediated teaching and learning enables access to educational opportunities, irrespective of locality, ruruality or remoteness. The design, development and delivery of technology enhanced learning in pre-service teacher education programs is therefore gaining momentum, both in Australia and internationally. Much research regarding online, or blended learning, has focussed on theoretically-founded learning areas, with less attention directed toward fundamentally practical learning areas, such as Design and Technology Education. Situated within the Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood Education, Primary, and Primary/Middle) degrees at the University of South Australia, Australia, this study captures the design, development and delivery of a blended Design and Technology course with first and third year pre-service teachers. Drawing on course learning analytics, pre-service teacher responses, and the reflective practice of teaching academics, this paper highlights the facilitators and challenges in transitioning to a blended model of curriculum delivery that addresses the contexts of the Australian Curriculum: Technologies.     

Evolution of state clusters related with technological capability in Mexico: Application of a multivariate statistical analysis of cluster

The objective of this work is to analyze how the technological capability is distributed between the Mexican states and to examine their evolution. To this end, an empirical study was developed using the cluster multivariate statistical analysis technique, based on the set of indicators proposed by Cepal (2007), and gathering the data from various public sources in the country during years 2006 and 2012. This was done to study the evolution of said conglomerates, trying to see which states have been able to move to a conglomerate located in more advanced positions and which have retreated within said period. The results show the existence of 7 groups of states characterized by different levels of technological capability. Furthermore, 3 entities that evolved into a more advanced conglomerate – regarding absorption and innovation capability, as well as infrastructure technological capability – are also detected.     

Friend or foe? The impact of high‐performance work practices on workplace bullying

The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between high‐performance work practices (HPWPs) and workplace bullying and identify possible mediators. The study presents hypotheses based on two competing perspectives: a mutual gains perspective, arguing that HPWPs lead to higher perceptions of justice and less role conflict, thereby reducing the risk of bullying; and, a critical perspective, arguing that HPWPs lead to work intensification and competition among colleagues, and thereby to more bullying. A two‐wave survey (n = 209) was conducted among business professionals in Finland. The results show that HPWPs are associated with less bullying, and justice and role conflict mediated the relationship. Thus, the results provide support for the mutual gains perspective on HPWPs, challenging prevailing assumptions in the bullying literature that suggest performance‐enhancing HR practices are a risk factor. Instead, the results point to the significance of HPWPs as an important tool to prevent bullying.