Building internal business scenarios based on real data from a performance measurement system

This paper presents a new methodology to build internal business scenarios from the data gathered by some key performance indicators (KPIs) defined within a performance measurement system. The application of the principal components analysis technique leads to the identification of latent relationships between KPIs that underlies some important business aspects. Further, this methodology allows to represent not only the temporal evolution of the organisation as a function of these business aspects but also the definition and determination of internal business scenarios, being therefore the source of meaningful managerial information. At the end of the paper, results of a practical application are presented and discussed, as well as their importance for the organisation from a decision making point of view.     

Currency substitution, portfolio diversification, and money demand

Abstract .  We extend the Thomas (1985) dynamic optimizing model of money demand and currency substitution to the case in which the individual has restricted or no access to foreign currency denominated bonds. In this case currency substitution decisions and asset substitution decisions are not separable. The results obtained suggest that the significance of an expected exchange rate depreciation term in the demand for domestic money provides a valid test for the presence of currency substitution. Applying this approach to six Latin-American countries, we find evidence of currency substitution in Colombia, Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, but not in Brazil and Chile.     

Producing Localized Commodity Frontiers at the End of Cheap Nature: An Analysis of Eco‐scalar Carbon Fixes and their Consequences

There is no single ‘great’ commodity frontier whose exploitation under current socio‐technical conditions could fuel capital accumulation at the global scale. According to Jason Moore, this represents the ‘end of Cheap Nature’ and signals a terminal crisis for capitalism as we know it. In this article we complicate this assertion by showing how, in the context of global environmental governance frameworks of carbon control, a diverse range of actors situated at multiple scales are intensifying the use of cities and their hinterlands for the production/transgression of localized commodity frontiers. We draw on scholarship on uneven geographical development, state‐led restructuring and eco‐scalar fixes to present two case studies from different segments of the carbon cycle in the global South. The first case demonstrates how the introduction of waste‐to‐energy technology in Delhi facilitated the generation of ‘carbon credits’ while waste matter itself became a commodity. The second discusses attempts by the Brazilian state of Amazonas (Amazônia) aspiring to shift from rainforest exploitation to financialized conservation supported by the ‘green global city’ functions of metropolitan Manaus. These cases demonstrate that although the global carbon‐control regime may enable accumulation, implementation remains speculative, and localized commodity frontiers provoke social resistances that jeopardize their durability.     

UNEMPLOYMENT, HYSTERESIS AND TRANSITION

In this paper, we quantify the degree of persistence in the unemployment rates of transition countries using a variety of methods benchmarked against the EU. Initially, we work with the concept of linear ‘Hysteresis’ as described by the presence of unit roots in unemployment as in most empirical research on this area. Given that this is potentially a narrow definition, we also take into account the existence of structural breaks and nonlinear dynamics in unemployment. Finally, we examine whether CEECs' unemployment presents features of multiple equilibria, that is, if it remains locked into a new level whenever some structural change or sufficiently large shock occurs. Our findings show that, in general, we can reject the unit‐root hypothesis after controlling for structural changes and business‐cycle effects, but we can observe the presence of a high and low unemployment equilibria. The speed of adjustment is faster for CEECs than the EU, although CEECs tend to move more frequently between equilibria.     

Worker Turnover, Job Turnover and Collective Bargaining in Spain

This paper analyses the relationship between the presence of organized labour in firms (approximated by the scope of collective bargaining) and the extent of gross worker and job flows. According to the voice theory of Freeman, those firms having a union presence will have lower worker mobility. However, there is no analysis of the effects of the presence of organized labour on gross job flows. Using a Spanish data base, we find evidence of the existence of a voice effect on gross worker flows but not clear support for a voice effect on gross job flows.     

Competent jerks, lovable fools, and the formation of social networks

When looking for help with a task at work, people turn to those best able to do the job. Right? Wrong. New research shows that work partners tend to be chosen not for ability but for likability. Drawing from their study encompassing 10,000 work relationships in five organizations, the authors have classified work partners into four archetypes: the competent jerk, who knows a lot but is unpleasant; the lovable fool, who doesn't know much but is a delight; the lovable star, who's both smart and likable; and the incompetent jerk, who.. .well, that's self-explanatory. Of course, everybody wants to work with the lovable star, and nobody wants to work with the incompetent jerk. More interesting is that people prefer the lovable fool over the competent jerk. That has big implications for every organization, as both of these types often represent missed opportunities. Because they are liked by a disproportionate number of people, lovable fools can bridge gaps between diverse groups that might not otherwise interact. But their networking skills are often developed at the expense of job performance, which can make these employees underappreciated and vulnerable to downsizing. To get the most out of them, managers need to protect them and put them in positions that don't waste their bridge-building talents. As for the competent jerks, too often their expertise goes untapped by people who just can't put up with them. But many can be socialized through coaching or by being made accountable for bad behavior. Others may need to display their competence in more isolated settings. Intriguingly, managers aren't limited to leveraging people that others like and changing those that others loathe. They also can create situations in which people are more apt to like one another, whatever their individual qualities.     

Marx's Theory of Ground Rent: A Critical Assessment

This critical essay provides the reader with an up-to-date assessmentof Marx's relatively neglected theory of absolute ground rentby bringing together in a coherent manner his scattered observationsand arguments contained primarily in Capital, Vol. III and Theoriesof Surplus Value, Vol. II. It also reviews the extant secondaryliterature which suggests that within Marx's theory of rentis an embryonic theory of monopoly from which scholars can drawimportant insights into the history of economic thought andthe workings of mature capitalism. The paper is organized asfollows. After an introductory section, Section II providesthe reader with an overview of Marx's theory of differentialrent and compares it to that of Ricardo, particularly Marx'sdiscussion of differential rent II and whether nature is productiveof exchange value. Section III discusses Marx's theory of absoluterent in light of recent criticisms by prominent scholars andsuggests that what determines whether rent is paid on the marginalland is not technical backwardness or lower productivity oflabor per se, but a social relation, viz., the monopoly createdby the private ownership of land. The last section summarizesthe main arguments and suggests some avenues for future research.     

Entrepreneurial cognition and internationalization speed: towards a potential moderating effect of experiential and rational information processing

This study explores the influence that entrepreneurial cognition, in terms of the dichotomy in human information processing, has on the earliness of internationalization and post-entry speed. Entrepreneurial cognition is investigated through the lens of the dual-process theory, which posits that human information processing is formed of two systems, the experiential cognitive system (System 1) and the rational and analytical cognitive system (System 2). The speed of the entire internationalization process is analyzed in terms of earliness (how soon after inception a company enters its first international market) and post-entry speed (how fast it enters new markets after the first internationalization). Drawing on ten cases, we find that companies that internationalized earlier and faster were managed by entrepreneurs with higher levels of the experiential cognitive system. In contrast, companies that internationalized later and more gradually were managed by entrepreneurs with higher levels of the rational cognitive system. Thus, our study reveals that the speed of the entire process of internationalization is governed, at least partially, by the entrepreneur’s cognition. On the basis of our findings, we introduce three propositions on the moderation that the entrepreneur’s cognition exerts on the well-established relations between environmental signals and both earliness of internationalization and post-internationalization speed.

     

From Financial Repression to External Distress: The Case of Venezuela

Recent work suggests a connection between domestic debt and external default. We examine potential linkages for Venezuela, where the evidence reveals a nexus among domestic debt, financial repression, and external vulnerability. The financial repression tax (as a share of GDP) is similar to OECD economies, in spite of higher debt ratios in the latter. The financial repression “tax rate” is higher in years of exchange controls and legislated interest rate ceilings. We document a link between domestic disequilibrium and a weakening of the net foreign asset position via private capital flight. We suggest these findings are not unique to Venezuela.     

Regional productivity variation and the impact of public capital stock: an analysis with spatial interaction,with reference to Spain

In this article, we examine whether variations in the level of public capital across Spain's Provinces affected productivity levels over the period 1996 to 2005. The analysis is motivated by contemporary urban economics theory, involving a production function for the competitive sector of the economy (‘industry’) which includes the level of composite services derived from ‘service’ firms under monopolistic competition. The outcome is potentially increasing returns to scale resulting from pecuniary externalities deriving from internal increasing returns in the monopolistic competition sector. We extend the production function by also making (log) labour efficiency a function of (log) total public capital stock and (log) human capital stock, leading to a simple and empirically tractable reduced form linking productivity level to density of employment, human capital and public capital stock. The model is further extended to include technological externalities or spillovers across provinces. Using panel data methodology, we find significant elasticities for total capital stock and for human capital stock, and a significant impact for employment density. The finding that the effect of public capital is significantly different from zero, indicating that it has a direct effect even after controlling for employment density, is contrary to some of the earlier research findings which leave the question of the impact of public capital unresolved.