Should governments mandate more female board representation? Possible intended and unintended consequences

Using data on more than 4,000 product recalls, we recently found that firms whose boards of directors include more women are significantly faster to recall dangerously defective medical products. More specifically, adding just one female director to a board with no women did not speed recalls, but increasing from one female director to two, from two to three, and so on led to increasingly faster recalls. This provides initial evidence that consumer safety can be improved through including more women on companies’ boards. Assuming data from other settings support our findings, it is tempting to conclude that governments should mandate a certain level of female board representation, especially for firms in consumer product sectors such as medical devices, food, toys, and automobiles. We suggest, however, that policy makers need to carefully think through the possible intended and unintended consequences of dictating board composition in terms of gender. Meanwhile, wise companies will recognize the benefits of greater female board representation and will pursue it without government intervention.     

Spanish tourism migrants : The case of Lloret de Mar

This paper details experiences of Spanish tourism migrants in a Costa Brava resort, Lloret de Mar. Employment in these resorts is largely seasonal, “unskilled” with long hours and low pay. Much of the labor force consists of women from rural areas where stable employment is scarce, and for whom migration can bring some improvement in their position in the household and the labor market. Migrants can redefine gender roles and reassess their class position, including attitudes toward unions. However, their immediate employers often operate on low profit margins, and as seasonal workers, tourism migrants are especially vulnerable to down-turns in the industry as well as to pressure from high national unemployment. These influences have hindered union organization. Tourism migration can bring temporary improvement for individual migrants, but has represented no more than a half-way house. It reflects lack of rural development, while providing no solution.     

Development of Value Stream Mapping from L’Oreal’s Artwork Process

ABSTRACT

This research develops value stream mapping (VSM) for L’Oreal’s artwork process, to eliminate waste, reduce lead-time, and identify stages that should be automated, which makes the process less prone to human error and more responsive to fulfilling B2B (B2B) customer requirements. Additionally, amendments frequently occur slowing down the artwork process. In this context, VSM is applied to L’Oreal’s artwork process to reduce lead-time, human error, and missed deadlines.

This practitioner note uses data from L’Oreal’s artwork tracker from 2018 to 2019, which is manually tracked by the launch team. The service level agreement and task time data has been collected from 12 employees representing the launch, factory, and marketing teams working on the artwork process. Qualitative feedback was also obtained from nine employees to validate the VSM for L’Oreal’s artwork process.

VSM identified stages that should be streamlined and automated in L’Oreal’s artwork process, which makes the process more efficient and responsive to the changing scope of the artworks. Fifty percent of the stages have been eliminated from the manual artwork process, resulting in a reduced lead-time of 10.5 days and a reduction of 28% time spent on the process. This allows the artwork process to be more agile to the requirements of B2B customers. Moreover, the proposed VSM shows a 73% increase in value added time for a renovation and a 75% increase in value added time for new product developments (NPD).

VSM has been used within many functions in a business, such as operations and supply chain management, however, its application within marketing has not been extensively explored. This practitioner note attempts to fill this gap by applying VSM to L’Oreal’s artwork process (AP). Moreover, this research extends the understanding of the concept and application of VSM within the context of lean in a marketing process. VSM has successfully identified the inefficiencies in the artwork process and highlighted the stages in the process that should be removed or automated thereby, making the process responsive and agile to meet the changing requirements of B2B customers.

VSM has been successfully applied to L’Oreal’s artwork process that resulted in a significant reduction in the total number of stages in the proposed process by eliminating non-value added activities. Efficiency gained through the application of VSM will lead to increased B2B customer satisfaction, reduced lead-time, and reduction in human errors and missed deadlines.

VSM has been specifically designed, developed, and analyzed for L’Oreal’s artwork process, in order to make the process more efficient and responsive to B2B customers' requirements.     

On the predictive power of monetary exchange rate model: the case of the Malaysian ringgit/US dollar rate

Despite anecdotal and survey evidence suggesting the presence of discrimination against customers in stores, restaurants and other small-transaction consumer markets, few studies exist that identify or quantify the nature of any unequal treatment. We provide evidence from a field study of wait times in Boston-area coffee shops that suggests that female customers wait an average of 20 seconds longer for their orders than do male customers even when controlling for gender differences in orders. We find that this differential in wait times is inverse to the proportion of employees who are female and directly related to how busy the coffee shop is at the time of the order. This supports the conclusion that the observed differential is driven at least in part by employee animus and/or statistical discrimination rather than unobserved heterogeneity in the purchasing behaviour of female customers.     

Firm size and employment determination in dutch manufacturing industries

This paper examines whether the determination of employment differs between large and small firms. An employment equation is estimated on panel data of 67 (35) three-digit industries in Dutch manufacturing (1974–1986). The conclusions are as follows. Firstly, employment adjustment appears to be faster in small firms than in large ones. Secondly, the elasticity of factor substitution and the real wage elasticity at constant output are nearly the same for large and small firms. Thirdly, the estimated output elasticities suggest constant returns to scale in large firms and increasing returns in small ones. Finally, the number of working hours has less impact on employment in small firms than in large ones.     

An Empirically Derived Framework of Global Supply Resiliency

In today’s global business environment, supply chains have increased in both length and complexity. This increase in length and complexity coupled with a focus on improving efficiency, such as lean manufacturing practices, may lead to higher levels of supply chain risk where the likelihood of a disruption severely impacting supply chain performance increases. Resilient supply chains have been touted as a means to reduce the likelihood and severity of supply chain disruptions. However, there is little empirical evidence relative to the factors that contribute to or detract from supply resiliency. Using systems theory and the resource‐based view of the firm as the theoretical underpinnings, this study provides an in‐depth systematic investigation of supply resiliency. Adopting a theory‐building approach based on a multi‐industry empirical investigation, this study derives empirical generalizations linking 19 supply chain characteristics to supply resiliency. The study culminates in a framework that could be used to assess the level of resiliency in a supply base. Building on this framework, the study also provides a supply resiliency matrix that can be utilized to classify supply chains, or supply chains segments according to the level of resiliency realized. This article concludes by proposing several future research directions and issues that may be investigated in more detail.     

Throwing caution to the wind: The effect of CEO stock option pay on the incidence of product safety problems

Stock options are thought to align the interests of CEOs and shareholders, but scholars have shown that options sometimes lead to outcomes that run counter to what they are meant to achieve. Building on this research, we argue that options promote a lack of caution in CEOs that manifests in a higher incidence of product safety problems. We also posit that this relationship varies across CEOs, and that the effect of options will depend upon CEO characteristics such as tenure and founder status. Analyzing product recall data for a large sample of FDA‐regulated companies, we find support for our theory. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL FORCES IN SECTORAL WAGE FORMATION: EVIDENCE FROM THE NETHERLANDS

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative importance of internal (sector-specific) and external (labour market) forces in sectoral wage formation in the Netherlands (1967–90). The results show that wages are largely determined by external forces, although internal forces are significant as well. The impact of the number of insiders, which plays a role in unemployment persistance, is not significant. Separate estimation results show that the impact of internal forces and of unemployment is weaker in the industrial sectors than in the service sectors. This casts doubt on the presumption that insider power increases the impact of internal forces on wage formation.