EFT — emerging issues in internationally related payments

Marjorie Greene of the Inter-Bank Research Organization comments on ‘Regulatory inhibitions on the development of electronic message systems in the USA’ by Philip S. Nyborg, published in the December 1978 issue of Telecommunications Policy.     

Facing the new facts of retirement income adequacy

A range of new factors is responsible for the current problem with insufficient retirement resources. Changes inside and outside the organization share partial responsibility, as do employee behaviors. In addition, other factors simply have been overlooked as employers and employees think about retirement income adequacy. The authors describe the current situation, discuss the significant risks it creates for both employers and employees and advise employers on what they should do to help employees build a more secure future in retirement.     

Explaining IJV survival in a transitional economy through social exchange and knowledge‐based perspectives

In this study, we combine social exchange and knowledge‐based perspectives to develop a general path model of IJV survival. We further refine our expectations by considering the transitional economic context of our study and the somewhat unique managerial values resulting from the legacy of Marxist ideology. Results from structural equation modeling suggest that an imbalance in the management control structure between the parents leads to parental conflict and an increased likelihood of IJV failure. An imbalance in the ownership control structure, however, had no influence on conflict or survival. In general, support from the foreign parent is positively related to IJV learning and IJV survival. However, higher levels of technical support provided by the foreign parent to the IJV reduced the level of parental conflict, whereas management support had no effect on conflict. Our results suggest some dilemmas for firms pursuing IJVs in transitional economies. Although the foreign parent often contributes critical resources to the IJV, providing it with bargaining power and a high level of influence, an imbalance in management control between the partners may ultimately be detrimental to IJV survival. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

I’m Number One! Does Narcissism Impair Ethical Judgment Even for the Highly Religious?

Can an assessment of individuals’ narcissism help explain the quality of a respondent’s ethical judgment? How is the relationship between religiosity and ethical judgment moderated by the effects of narcissism? With a sample of 385 undergraduate business majors, this study uses a taxonomic approach to examine the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity as well as orthodox Christian beliefs on ethical judgment. Three distinct clusters were identified: Skeptics, Nominals, and Devouts. Surprisingly, of the three clusters, Nominals and Devouts were the only groups impacted by narcissism, although Skeptics overall demonstrate the worst ethical judgment.     

Predicting the Frequency and Amount of Health Care Expenditures

Abstract

This article extends the standard two-part model for predicting health care expenditures to the case where multiple events may occur within a one-year period. The first part of the extended model represents the frequency of events, such as the number of inpatient hospital stays or outpatient visits, and the second part models expenditure per event. Both component models also use independent variables that consist of an individual’s demographic and access characteristics, socioeconomic status, health status, health insurance coverage, employment status, and industry classification. The second part of the model also includes a variable representing the number of events to predict the expenditure per event, thus capturing dependencies between the first and second parts. This article introduces closed-form predictors of annual total expenditures and demonstrates how to create simulated predictive distributions for individuals and groups. The data for this study are from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). MEPS panels 7 and 8 from 2003 were used for estimation; panels 8 and 9 from 2004 were used to validate predictions. This annual expenditures model provided a better fit to the data than standard two-part models. The count variable was significant in predicting outpatient expenditures. The aggregate expenditures model provided better point predictions of held-out total expenditures than competing models, including the standard two-part model. The predictive distribution for aggregate expenditures for small groups is long tailed, with both the variability and skewness decreasing as the group size increases, an important point for programs designed to manage expenditures.     

Organisational practices and the post‐retirement employment experience of older workers

This study compared people aged 50 to 65 who had retired and returned to work (n = 90), who remained in their career jobs (n = 198), and who retired and remained out of the workforce (n = 321). The significant differences between post‐retirement and career employment were associated with the HR practices within organisations and were not related to the characteristics of the organisations in which post‐retirement and career jobs were found. The HR practices were rated as especially important in influencing the decision of retirees to return to work. The findings suggest that people in post‐retirement jobs are drawn to organisations that provide HR practices tailored to the needs and desires of older workers. The results also indicate that if employers expect to address labour shortages by encouraging retirees back into the workforce, they are going to have to implement those HR practices that are important to this group.