Voluntary or mandatory enrollment in training and the motivation to transfer training

The purpose of this study is to examine the motivation to transfer training in a multidimensional way. It investigates autonomous and controlled motivation and explores the difference in motivation to transfer according to whether the employee is enrolled in training on a voluntary or mandatory basis. This is a cross‐sectional hypotheses‐testing study. Data were collected at a large insurance company involving employees who had participated in training programs in the previous 6 months. Findings show that when considering autonomous motivation to transfer, results support the argument that being voluntarily enrolled in the training program shows a higher impact on motivation to transfer than being mandatorily enrolled. When considering controlled motivation to transfer, results do not support such an argument, probably because of the nature of controlled motivation to transfer that in practice reduces the difference in results between the two types of enrollment.     

Tender evaluation and supplier selection methods in public procurement

The EU procurement directives stipulate that public contracts be awarded to the lowest bidder or to the bidder with the economically most advantageous tender; the latter requiring that a scoring rule be specified. We provide a simple theoretical framework, based on standard microeconomic theory, for tender evaluation (scoring and weighing) and discuss the pros and cons of methods such as highest quality (beauty contest), lowest price and price-and-quality-based evaluations. We argue that the most common method, price-to-quality scoring, is inappropriate for several reasons. It is non-transparent, making accurate representation of the procurer's preferences difficult. It is often open to strategic manipulation, due to dependence on irrelevant alternatives, and it tends to impose particular and unjustified non-linearity in bid prices. The alternative quality-to-price scoring method, where money values are assigned to different quality levels, is a better alternative. However, when the cost of quality is relatively well-known and several providers can offer optimal quality, lowest price is the preferable supplier selection method, while beauty contests may be preferred when purchasing budgets are inflexible.     

Labour costs dynamics in the Euro area: some empirical evidence

Little is known about how the introduction of a common currency and a single monetary policy has affected the labour cost dynamics in the Euro area. The literature has focused mainly on business cycle synchronisation. This paper analyses labour costs convergence in the Euro area since 1995, combining results from different data and two complementary approaches. First we present some relevant facts about wages and unit labour cost dynamics and, in a second phase, we investigate whether the physical introduction of the euro has changed the volatility and the synchronisation of labour costs cycles, in a context of globalisation. Overall, our results indicate that labour markets in the Euro area are very heterogeneous. However, some signs of labour cost convergence are beginning to emerge. After the circulation of the euro, it seems that a reduction in nominal unit labour costs differences and an increase on the degree of synchronisation has occurred, which has been strengthened in the economic and financial crisis period.     

AN ULTIMATUM WAGE BARGAINING EXPERIMENT ON TRADE UNION EFFICIENCY

We present an ultimatum wage bargaining experiment showing that a trade union facilitating non‐binding communication among workers, raises wages by simultaneously increasing employers’ posted offers and toughening the bargaining position of employees, without reducing overall market efficiency.     

Proxying Ability by Family Background in Returns to Schooling Estimations is Generally a Bad Idea*

When schooling is measured with error and data on ability are lacking, return to schooling estimates will be subject to positive omitted variable bias (OVB) and negative measurement error bias (MEB). We investigate how these biases are affected when ability is proxied by family background variables. We show that the effect on OVB is uncertain, while MEB invariably increases in magnitude. Our empirical analysis demonstrates that MEB generally dominates OVB. With more background variables or increased measurement error, the total bias rapidly becomes negative and increasing in magnitude, thereby driving the return estimate further and further away from the true value.     

Are the determinants of bank loyalty brand specific?

One of the primary concerns of companies is to develop loyal customers, and banks are no exception. Past research attempted to examine the role of satisfaction, perceived quality and image, as drivers of bank brand loyalty. However the characteristics of specific bank brands were not taken into consideration. Using data collected from a sample of 216 retail bank customers, banking with five different banks in Athens Greece, this paper investigates whether similar antecedents could be used to predict brand loyalty in various institutions. The results imply that, depending on the bank, different drivers could influence in a dissimilar manner the formation of loyalty and therefore further research is needed to generalise the suggested models.     

Advice and monitoring in venture finance

This paper provides empirical insight into the role of contracts and legal systems for managing investor–investee relationships along two dimensions: providing advice and addressing conflict. We examine a new detailed dataset from European venture capital (VC) funds. We match very specific contractual terms in VC contracts with the effort (total time spent) and advice that VCs provide to their entrepreneurial investee firms. We also analyze VC–entrepreneur conflicts. We compare the importance of contractual versus non-contractual governance mechanisms, as well as the role of legal systems in different countries for facilitating VC–entrepreneur relationships. The data indicate VC cash-flow and control rights significantly facilitating effort and advice that VCs provide to entrepreneurs. VC–entrepreneur conflicts are closely tied to the quality of laws in which the entrepreneur resides: higher quality legal systems mitigate VC–entrepreneur conflicts. The data further indicate that non-contractual governance mechanisms significantly facilitate VC advice and mitigate VC–entrepreneur conflicts. The results provide a unique unifying look into the role of actual VC contracts and legal settings versus non-contractual governance mechanisms, risk, and success potential on VC–entrepreneur relationships in an international context.      

Is Corporate Governance in China Related to Performance Persistence?

This paper examines the relationship between performance persistence and corporate governance (as proxied for by board characteristics and shareholder structure). We document systematic differences in performance persistence across listed companies in China during 2001–2011, and empirically demonstrate that firms with better corporate governance show higher performance persistence. The results are robust over both the short and long terms. We also find that performance persistence is an important factor in refinancing, and it can lower companies’ costs of borrowing. Overall, our findings offer important implications for business ethics, as we demonstrate how corporate governance can lower companies’ costs of debt.     

The information search process of socially responsible investors

Largely fuelled by an increasing social and ethical concern among private investors, socially responsible investment (SRI) has, in many ways, gone from having a marginal role to becoming a ‘mainstream’ financial service in recent years. SRI is an investment process that, in addition to the ‘traditional’ financial objective of investment, also uses social, ethical or environmental (SEE) criteria when making investment decisions. However, despite the growth of the market for SRI profiled mutual funds, very little research has been carried out with the objective of understanding the decision-making process of private SR-investors. In order to address this gap in the literature, this article addresses one stage in the SR-investor decision-making process: consumer pre-purchase information search. Using a sample of 369 SR-investors, the results of the study indicate that SR-investors search more for SEE information, such as the criteria used for exclusion of stocks than for ‘regular’ financial information such as past financial return and level of risk. Moreover, the study also indicates that involvement and perceived knowledge with regard to both financial and SEE issues impact the nature of the information search process of private SR mutual fund investors.     

The core periphery model with asymmetric inter-regional and intra-regional trade costs

We generalize the model of Krugman (J Polit Econ 99(3):483–499, 1991) to allow for asymmetric trade costs between regions and for (asymmetric) trade costs that are internal to the regions. We find that industrial activity, in a region, is enhanced by higher costs of importing and lower costs of exporting (more precisely, by a higher ratio between the two trade costs). This suggests that countries may impose tariffs on imported goods and seek to remove the import tariffs in other countries (unilateral protectionism) in order to foster industrial activity. Industrial activity is also promoted by lower domestic internal trade costs and higher foreign internal trade costs (more precisely, by a lower ratio between the two trade costs).