Vulnerability to poverty: an empirical comparison of alternative measures

This article compares empirically the several measures of individual vulnerability to poverty proposed in the literature, in order to understand which is the best signal of poverty that can be used for policy purposes. To this aim, the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve, the Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients are used as precision criteria. The results show that two groups of indexes can be identified, high and low performers, and, among the former, that proposed by Dutta et al. (2011 Dutta, I. 2011. Foster, J. and Mishra, A., On measuring vulnerability to poverty, Social Choice and Welfare, 37, 743–61 [Google Scholar]) is the most precise.     

The care-less marketplace: exclusion as affective inequality

ABSTRACT

The care-less marketplace is a discrete site which reinforces structural inequality in the affective domain of life. Drawing on the work of pro-care feminist theory, this empirical paper explores marketplace exclusion from the perspective of economic disadvantage and its impact on relations of love, care and solidarity. Adopting a voice-centred-relational approach, this interpretative study examines the narrative accounts of a diverse group of women living in diverse poverty contexts. Articulating marketplace exclusion as a series of affective burdens, material struggles and disconnections embedded within the relational web of family, friends and community – these experiences mirror participants’ imposed exclusion in the marketplace due to chronic economic hardship. Through the diffusion of an alternative theoretical lens, affective inequality surfaces the importance of care and how it is often most visible in the lives of vulnerable consumers when it is absent or broken.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Zum Lachen auf die Station gehen</Emphasis>

Das kann ja heiter werden — Schlauchender Schichtdienst, Krach mit der Kollegin und zuhause tanzen die M?use Tarantella. Wer dabei gelassen und fr?hlich bleibt, wei? wahrscheinlich, dass Lachen die beste Medizin gegen Stress ist. Ein Pl?doyer dafür, Humor im Pflegedienst viel ernster zu nehmen.     

Versicherungsunternehmen in Social Networks – ein Überblick über aktuelle Forschungsfelder und eine experimentelle Studie zur Kundenansprache

Due to changing customer demands Social Networks become increasingly important in insurance business life. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of both the traditional and new approaches of Social Network research. Based on this analysis we present categorized implications that show evidence for future research. We take up the research question from the category “communication and marketing” in order to experimentally investigate different kinds of customer communication in Social Networks. Our results show that the kind of customer communication has an impact on the willingness to comply. Thus, the kind of customer communication could be a critical criterion for the success of an insurance company in Social Networks.     

Neither passive nor powerless: reframing economic vulnerability via resilient pathways

ABSTRACT

Resilience, as an emerging construct within the contemporary field of consumer vulnerability, has received limited empirical attention within the context of economic adversity. This paper examines how low-income women strive to reframe their relationship to the market via resilient pathways. It establishes how through active agency, self-care practices and relational coping, women maximise care of self and care of others with limited economic means. Comprised of multidimensional coping resources for positive adaptation, resilient pathways offer vulnerable consumers distinct trajectories to well-being and overturn deficit-focused views about how those facing chronic economic disadvantage, (re)assert themselves in vulnerable consumption contexts.     

Defaults and advice in self-customization procedures of insurance

The customization of insurance products is a crucial factor for the success of many insurance companies because it allows customers to tailor the insurance according to their specific needs. Customization can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. Focusing on two vertical customization methods, by-attribute and by-alternative customization, we experimentally analyze the influence of defaults. Moreover, we compare the effect of defaults to the influence of stated advice. Our results demonstrate that defaults enhance the likelihood of choosing premium insurance compared to a situation without defaults for both the by-attribute customization and the by-alternative customization. However, the customization process itself has no influence on default acceptance. If insurance companies combine a default with extensive advice (i.?e., advice that provides an explanation for why the advice is given), customers are most likely to choose the premium insurance.     

Key study of bank accounts for young people with using multi-criteria optimization and fuzzy analysis

Using multi-criteria optimization and fuzzy analysis this article aims to select the most suitable bank account for young people. Two scientific questions are asked: Is the same type of student account suitable for an active as well as an inactive client? Are there any free of charge student accounts?

The first part focuses on the introduction to the topic, a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of student accounts and modelling of two target groups. The second part describes the methodology of decision-making by using a fuzzy set theory. Selection of the optimum student account will be made by the transformation matrix. Subsequently, the retransformation matrix is set. The most suitable student accounts are again selected for each profile and the results are compared with the analysis in the first part. To complete the solution, the last part of the article focuses on decision-making with the uncertainty of input information. Due to ignorance of their own monthly needs and the number of payments, fuzzy sets are used. In addition to the active and passive client, a third profile will be newly created and can be identified with some of the profiles to a certain extent.     

The impact of China's imports on European Union industrial employment

As the EU's biggest supplier of imported goods and a second trading partner, China has become an increasingly important actor on the global economic scene. This paper reports new evidence through analyzing whether the EU labour market is affected by exposure to imports from China. Drawing on a panel dataset of 27 EU countries, over the 2003–2013 period, and using the pooled mean group estimator, the results show that imports from China have a negative effect on industrial employment. This result holds separately for the all analyzed categories: all products, manufactured products as well as for the sub‐groups.     

On Two Existing Approaches to Statistical Analysis of Social Media Data

Using social media data for statistical analysis of general population faces commonly two basic obstacles: firstly, social media data are collected for different objects than the population units of interest; secondly, the relevant measures are typically not available directly but need to be extracted by algorithms or machine learning techniques. In this paper, we examine and summarise two existing approaches to statistical analysis based on social media data, which can be discerned in the literature. In the first approach, analysis is applied to the social media data that are organised around the objects directly observed in the data; in the second one, a different analysis is applied to a constructed pseudo survey dataset, aimed to transform the observed social media data to a set of units from the target population. We elaborate systematically the relevant data quality frameworks, exemplify their applications and highlight some typical challenges associated with social media data.     

The influence of international networks on internationalization speed and performance: A study of Czech SMEs

Drawing on social capital theory and the international entrepreneurship literature, we develop hypotheses relating the structural, cognitive and relational aspects of the international network of SME CEOs to two internationalization outcomes – speed and performance. The study is based on a sample of 155 Czech SMEs covering a broad range of manufacturing industries. Our findings indicate that firms sharing a common language with their international ties are able to internationalize faster than firms that do not share a common language. Moreover, we observe that geographically diverse networks contribute to superior performance. Extensive reliance on personal contacts hinders the performance of the first international venture.