The impact of European firms＇ economic conditions and financial performance on accounting quality

In this study the authors analyse the possible effect of firms＇ economic conditions and financial performance on accounting quality. Bradshaw, et al. （2004）, Gelos ＆ WEI （2005） stated that financial reporting quality is fundamental for investors and it affects international capital movements. Following Schipper ＆ Vicent （2003）, the authors estimated accounting quality by abnormal accruals and earnings persistence. The authors＇ contribution consists of investigating a huge number of firms from 17 European countries using unbalanced panel data. The authors found evidence that economic conditions affect accounting quality： big firms and those with high current earnings exhibit better financial information. These results are robust because they do not depend on the accounting quality proxy, even when the authors estimated regression with economical and financial factors alone or together. Financial performance does not seem to affect accounting quality. However, this relation is not linear because in high leveraged firms, the capital structure becomes determinant.     

Gender-Based Vicarious Sensitivity to Disempowering Behavior in Organizations: Exploring an Expanded Concept of Hostile Working Environment

The purpose of this study was to explore evidence of gender-based vicarious sensitivity to disempowering behavior in organizations, expanding the concept of hostile working environment beyond the context of sexual harassment. Male and female graduate and undergraduate students viewed 10 video segments of Anita Hill's interview by U.S. senators during the October 1991 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Nominee, Clarence Thomas. Although no significant relationship was found between the personal attributes of age and ethnicity to perceptions of disempowering behavior, female participants reported seeing significantly more offensive behavior in the video segments than did male participants. The results are discussed in terms of greater female sensitivity to common forms of disempowering behavior in organizations, and having a disparate negative impact and systematically placing women at a disadvantage in today's workforce.     

Work,Care and Gender during the COVID-19 Crisis*

We explore the effects of the COVID-19 crisis and the associated restrictions to economic activity on paid and unpaid work for men and women in the United Kingdom. Using data from the COVID-19 supplement of Understanding Society, we find evidence that labour market outcomes of men and women were roughly equally affected at the extensive margin, as measured by the incidence of job loss or furloughing. But, if anything, women suffered smaller losses at the intensive margin, experiencing slightly smaller changes in hours and earnings. Within the household, women provided on average a larger share of increased childcare needs, but in an important share of households fathers became the primary childcare providers. These distributional consequences of the pandemic may be important to understand its inequality legacy over the longer term.     

Human capital and firms’ innovation: evidence from emerging economies

ABSTRACT

We explore the relationship between human capital and firms’ innovation in emerging economies. Most papers consider the formal knowledge developed in R&D laboratories as a major source of innovation. However, a critical portion of knowledge required for innovation resides in human resources and is created outside any formalised R&D activity. We consider that, to improve their technological capabilities, firms should invest in different forms of human capital, namely highly educated workforce and experienced managers, but also in strategic human resource (HR) practices aimed at developing human capital by increasing employees’ firm-specific technical skills and competences. Besides looking at the type of innovation outcomes, we place greater emphasis on the strategies of innovation development, as these should signal an improved firms’ ability, not just to innovate, but to put their own creative effort in the development of innovation. Our results contrast with the traditional view of firms in emerging economies as mainly relying on the external acquisition of innovations, by showing their actual ability to develop new technologies. In this respect, HR practices aimed at fostering employees’ learning and autonomy at work appear more important than the educational attainment of workers, whilst the experience of managers does not seem effective.     

What hinders innovation performance of services and manufacturing firms in Mexico?

Barriers to innovation are heterogeneous, of financial and non-financial nature. The importance of barriers to innovation and their actual influence on innovation depend on firms’ characteristics such as sectoral affiliation, technological behavior and their response to perceived obstacles to innovation. Firms either continue to engage in innovation, or they avoid the activity altogether. This paper explored the nature and perceived importance of the obstacles to innovation that firms confront, in a developing-country context; we build on survey data about firms in Mexico. Our findings suggest that two kinds of policy interventions should help offset a firm’s perception of barriers to innovation. On the one hand, policies should enhance the innovation capacity of firms interested in innovation; on the other hand, policies need to tackle factors that reduce the interest of firms in innovation. Policies that boost demand for locally generated innovations would assist in achieving both these goals.     

Technical progress in Joan Robinson's view: an attempt at systematisation and formalisation

This paper deals with Joan Robinson's contributions to the issue of technical progress and her attempts at treating this subject in accordance with the Keynesian theory of employment and income distribution, mainly in the long run. The paper aims to review this aspect of her work and to establish a systematisation and a formalisation of her approach. At the same time, the paper exposes the problems she faced—but did not always solve. Looking through her main contributions, the paper concludes that she used different criteria for the classification of innovations and that they depended on the specific situations described by the models in which she used the classification.     

Size and industry effects in the performance of agricultural cooperatives

The objective of this study is to determine if there are important size and industry effects on financial performance of agricultural cooperatives. The performance of 43 dairy, food, grain, and farm supply cooperatives in the U.S. was analyzed over the period 1970-1987 using financial ratios derived from accounting data. The analysis revealed significant size and industry effects. Large regional cooperatives are more efficient in utilizing their assets to generate sales, while small regional cooperatives have higher profitability. The findings suggest that the emphasis on growth may not always produce beneficial results among agricultural cooperatives. Among the four industries studied, the dairy regional cooperatives appear to be the strongest performers, while the food marketing cooperatives are characterized by the lowest performance measures. Since both dairy and food cooperatives engage in value-added processing, this difference in performance makes it difficult to reach clear conclusions about possible advantages of disadvantages or vertical integration relative to traditional cooperative activities. Trend analysis indicates that the profitability of the agricultural cooperatives in all industry and size categories declined in response to the downturn in U.S. agriculture after 1980. While the decline in profitability was at similar rates for both large and small cooperatives, the variation of efficiency and leverage was in opposite directions. Large cooperatives may be expected to continue improving their asset utilization without relative improvement in profitability, and increasing the level of their debt in relation to equity.     

Interaktion mit Online-Communities — Spielregeln zur Stärkung der Marke

Zusammenfassung  Innerhalb kürzester Zeit hat sich im Internet eine gro?e Bandbreite von Online-Communities entwickelt, als fester Bestandteil der Beziehungswelt vieler Kunden. Unternehmen k?nnen für die Markenführung der Zukunft das Thema Online-Communities nicht mehr ausklammern, finden sich aber h?ufig im Internetdschungel (noch) nicht zurecht. Um Bewertungsportale, Blogs, Social Networking Sites, Virtual Worlds etc. im Sinne der Marke verstehen und nutzen zu k?nnen müsse Markenmanager eine Reihe von Spielregeln erlernen und beachten. Dr. Claudia Fisher-Buttinger Markenberaterin und Gründerin der Lemontree Brand Strategy mit Sitz in München. Dr. Christine Vallaster Dozentin an der Hochschule Liechtenstein in Vaduz am Institut für Entrepreneurship.     

Communication and mobility behaviour – a trend and panel analysis of the correlation between mobile phone use and mobility

The paper examines the assumption about the complementarity between telecommunications and transport on the level of individual persons. Taking into account that previous studies have shown the particularly strong correlation between mobile phone use and travel behaviour, telecommunications use is considered by focussing on the mobile phone. Using panel data from Germany for the years 2004 and 2007 the first step consisted in an investigation of changes in mobile phone use taking into consideration also the level from which potential changes started. About one half of the respondents had changed their mobile phone use, in most cases by an increase of use. In a second step a comparison was made to potential changes in travel behaviour of the observed persons. The results show that in those groups of persons where the mobile phone use was on a high level or even increased from a high level in 2003, travel behaviour in terms of travel frequency decreased less than for all other persons or even increased. The assumption that changes in “life circumstances” such as new place of residence or change of household size trigger the change in mobile phone use or travel behaviour could be generally confirmed.