Illegal immigration in the presence of labor unions

"This paper develops a general equilibrium framework of a two-sector economy which incorporates illegal immigration in the presence of labor unions. It demonstrates that stricter enforcement of immigration laws, by reducing the demand for or supply of illegal aliens, benefits all legal workers in the economy. The model is used to evaluate the impact of these policy changes on national income. Results indicate that national income does not necessarily fall when immigration controls are tightened. The existence of a union mitigates the negative welfare impact of a reduction in the number of illegal immigrants."     

Human Capital Spillovers and Regional Development

This paper introduces technological interdependence into the theoretical framework of Gennaioli et al. (Quarterly Journal of Economics 2013; 128 : 105–164). This extension leads to an expression for regional development with spatial effects that motivates the incorporation of the geographical dimension into their newly constructed database and empirical analysis. Our estimation results corroborate both the necessity of accounting for the presence of spatial dependence to study the determinants of regional income per capita and the importance of educational attainment in explaining regional development differences. Furthermore, we provide evidence that human capital generates positive spatial spillovers. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The level of innovation among young innovative companies: the impacts of knowledge-intensive services use,firm characteristics and the entrepreneur attributes

The link between difficulties in obtaining funding and young innovative companies (YICs) has been investigated in numerous studies. YICs also face other barriers such as limited internal resources, access to technology services, etc. Thus, any public policy on innovation for providing financial support to YICs must be accompanied by offering technical assistance and consulting services. The purpose of this study is to determine the characteristics of YICs that enhance their innovation and, specifically, if the use of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) helps drive innovation. This study also investigates the level of innovation among YICs in relation to the firms’ characteristics (size, sector, competition) and the entrepreneurs’ attributes (age, gender). This study found that the use of KIBS stimulates innovation in YICs.     

Trust and economic relationships in selected European agrifood chains

The role of trust in eight selected agrifood chains in four EU countries is explored. The empirical analysis is based on a qualitative assessment of 28 expert interviews conducted in summer/autumn 2005. In particular, the connection between perceived trust levels and the prevailing type of vertical economic relationships are explored from the perspectives of farmers, processors and retailers. The findings suggest that trust is more pronounced among SMEs, which are characterized by the existence of personal relationships between business partners. However, as is clear for pork breeders, if a source of distrust exists, trust may not fully develop. Also, if the general economic situation is difficult, the development of trust may be hampered, because all chain participants are struggling to command a share of a diminishing margin within the chain. Finally, if economic power is distributed unevenly, as is the case in Germany, Ireland, Spain and the UK where retailers dominate most chains, trust of the more powerful may be limited.     

Web Adoption and Firm Performance in the Fashion Industry: The Moderating Role of Social and Economic Rational Managerial Perceptions

This article draws on an integrated perspective of institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm by studying the causal relationships among Web technology adoption, social and economic rational managerial perceptions, and firm results. It does so in the context of the fashion industry. The article suggests that both resource-based view and institutional factors may better explain firm performance. Isomorphic rationality as institutional forces of firm homogeneity are proposed as determinants of rent potential that complement and extend resource-based explanations of firm success variation and sustainable competitive advantage in the fashion industry.     

The impact of religiosity on self- assessments of health and happiness: evidence from the US Southwest

Using an age stratified random sample from an ongoing population-based study of Mexican Americans 45 years of age or older living in the Southwest this study fexamines the relationship between religiosity and self-rated indices of physical health, subjective health status and happiness. After estimating a set of binary logit models and controlling for individual characteristics such as age and gender, findings indicate that religiously involved respondents have a lower probability of reporting a health problem than those less or not involved. Further, those respondents who attend religious services regularly are more likely to assess themselves healthier and happier than those reporting sporadic or no attendance. However, when the religious variable is factored into six constructs, as the frequency of religious attendance increases the happiness measure initially increases to an inflection point then it continues to increase but at a slower rate. This result is consistent with the argument that those individuals who, on average, attend religious services once a week appear to reap the greatest incremental rewards in terms of assessments of subjective health and overall happiness.     

Matchmaking: community and business unit racial/ethnic diversity and business unit performance

Past studies examining how the match between organization and community racial/ethnic proportions influences performance have relied on the social categorization perspective on diversity, but have not offered strong significant results. However, the information and decision-making perspective on diversity suggests that organizational diversity fit based on variety, rather than a match of demographic proportions, leads to greater performance. This study considered both perspectives to test how both racial/ethnic proportions matching and diversity fit influence business unit financial performance. This was tested on a sample of 51 business units of a restaurant chain in the USA. The results show that business unit diversity was associated with higher performance in diverse communities but not in homogeneous communities. This suggests that racial/ethnic diversity is a valuable human resource conducive to greater performance but this is contingent upon community diversity. Implications for organizational diversity research and human resource management are discussed.     

Developmental management: Theories,methods, and applications in entrepreneurship,innovation, and sensemaking

This paper summarizes the best papers of the Global Innovation and Knowledge Academy (GIKA) conference, which took place in July 2013 in Valencia, Spain. The Journal of Business Research has published a special issue entitled “Developmental management: Theories, methods, and applications in entrepreneurship, innovation, and sensemaking”. All of them went through many rounds of double-blind reviews and revisions. Theories, methods, and applications are the three pillars to solve the issues in entrepreneurship, innovation, and sensemaking. Entrepreneurship contributes to the quality and future hopes of a sector, economy or even a country. The role of the entrepreneurs is crucial in creating value. Innovation has become important as the global economy seeks to escape from a period of major recession. In organizations, sensemaking consists of cognitive strategies for interpreting reality. It is interesting to examine how these three issues interacting with each other. And these papers contribute to various perspectives of these interactions in different countries.