Female Representation on Corporate Boards in Europe: The Interplay of Organizational Social Consciousness and Institutions

Journal of Business Ethics - We examine the role of alignment between organizational social consciousness and the informal and formal institutions of a country in increasing female representation...     

A Gendered Model of the Peasant Household: Time poverty and Farm Production in Rural Mozambique

Using insights from a case study on the allocation of labor in subsistence households in Mozambique, this study develops a conceptual framework for examining linkages between time poverty and farm production. An unexpected event such as a health crisis increases the demand for labor provided by women, thus making them more time poor. The model and numerical simulations show that a deterioration in a woman's time constraint will have an adverse effect on agricultural output of the household. This occurs because most women respond to an increase in household work by reducing their work hours on the farm and by reducing their leisure time. The latter outcome is expected to have a negative effect on women's physical and mental health, which will then cause a decline in their productivity on the farm.     

Social Media Index Valuation: Impact of Technological,Social, Economic,and Ethical Dimensions

Marketing practitioners have recognized a growing need to measure consumer-generated social media in a standard way since there are numerous social media indicators in use, making intra- and inter-company comparisons difficult. This paper identifies four social media dimensions for measurement and evaluation: technological, social, economic, and ethical; and, subsequently, measures social media. The study makes a contribution to social media literature by using analytic hierarchy process of developing a mathematical model for social media index valuation. The “social media composite index number” will serve as an industry benchmark signifying the organization's share and commitment to social media.     

Gender Differences in Time-Poverty in Rural Mozambique

Based on time-use data from a 2013 primary household survey, this study examines the nature and extent of time-poverty experienced by men and women in peasant households in Mozambique. The main findings indicate that while women's labor allocation to economic activities is comparable to that of men, household chores and care work are almost entirely women's responsibility. The heavy burden of responsibilities leave women significantly time-poorer compared to men. Women's time-poverty worsens when the burden of simultaneous care work is taken into account. In addition, due to multitasking, the work tends to be more taxing. The examination of determinants of time-poverty shows that common measures of individual economic power, such as assets and education, do not necessarily affect the time-poverty faced by women.     

Alternate signs of life: The growth of biotechnology industries in Shanghai and Bangalore

This paper explores the emergence of biotechnology centers in Shanghai and Bangalore by comparing their development to best practices in the literature for biotechnology cluster growth and development. Interviews with over fifty biotech companies and related institutions in China and India indicate that these regions are developing alternate models of low cost manufacturing and services that build on the current local base of knowledge and expertise. The ability to convert research into successful commercial activity was identified in both regions. The strong research capacity, private sector funding, and entrepreneurial environment deemed critical best practices were limited. New growth theory is used to explain these alternate approaches to technological and social change.     

Role of quality management capabilities in developing market-based organisational learning capabilities: Case study evidence from four Indian business process outsourcing firms

Business-to-business marketing literature acknowledges the value firms, including business process outsourcing firms, realise through their supplier networks. Such value realisation is often possible through a dynamic exchange of complementary organisational capabilities between a firm and its network partners. However, little is known about how outsourcing firms develop these capabilities and thus realise value. This paper addresses an unexplored theoretical gap of developing market-based organisational learning capabilities in business process outsourcing firms. Using a capabilities lens, this study assesses the impact of quality management capabilities in developing market-based organisational learning capability. Findings from a case study of four business process outsourcing firms in India suggest that effective knowledge transfer, diffusion and the development of market-based organisational learning capabilities are contingent upon the strength of a firm's quality management capabilities. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Optimal trade policy with quality-differentiated goods

In this article we apply the model of vertically differentiated products to international trade. A foreign firm competes with a domestic firm in the latter's market, producing products of varying quality. We examine the nature of the equilibrium in this case, assuming the firms compete in prices. Contrary to the popular belief, we show that a protectionist policy of imposing a tariff on the foreign firm raises overall welfare in the domestic economy, as well as induces the domestic firm to upgrade the quality of its product, if it produces the lower quality product. Furthermore, if minimum quality standards are imposed on the foreign firm, the domestic firm upgrades quality, and overall welfare in the domestic economy is higher.     

Fair welfare maximization

We consider the general problem of finding fair constrained resource allocations. As a criterion for fairness we propose an inequality index, termed “fairness ratio,” the maximization of which produces Lorenz-undominated, Pareto-optimal allocations. The fairness ratio does not depend on the choice of any particular social welfare function, and hence it can be used for an a priori evaluation of any given feasible resource allocation. The fairness ratio for an allocation provides a bound on the discrepancy between this allocation and any other feasible allocation with respect to a large class of social welfare functions. We provide a simple representation of the fairness ratio as well as a general method that can be used to directly determine optimal fair allocations. For general convex environments, we provide a fundamental lower bound for the optimal fairness ratio and show that as the population size increases, the optimal fairness ratio decreases at most logarithmically in what we call the “inhomogeneity” of the problem. Our method yields a unique and “balanced” fair optimum for an important class of problems with linear budget constraints.     

The risky business of hiring stars

With the battle for the best and brightest people heating up again, you're most likely out there looking for first-rate talent in the ranks of your competitors. Chances are, you're sold on the idea of recruiting from outside your organization, since developing people within the firm takes time and money. But the authors, who have tracked the careers of high-flying CEOs, researchers, software developers, and leading professionals, argue that top performers quickly fade after leaving one company for another. To study this phenomenon in greater detail, the authors analyzed the ups and downs of more than 1,000 star stock analysts, a well-defined group for which there are abundant data. The results were striking. After a star moves, not only does her performance plunge, but so does the effectiveness of the group she joins--and the market value of her new company. Moreover, transplanted stars don't stay with their new organizations for long, despite the astronomical salaries firms pay to lure them from rivals. Most companies that hire stars overlook the fact that an executive's performance is not entirely transferable because his personal competencies inevitably include company-specific skills. When the star leaves the old company for the new, he cannot take with him many of the resources that contributed to his achievements. As a result, he is unable to repeat his performance in another company--at least not until he learns to work the new system, which could take years. The authors conclude that companies cannot gain a competitive advantage or successfully grow by hiring stars from outside. Instead, they should focus on cultivating talent from within and do everything possible to retain the stars they create. Firms shouldn't fight the star wars, because winning could be the worst thing that happens to them.     

Asset arbitrage and the price of oil

It is commonly understood that macroeconomic shocks influence commodity prices and that one channel for this is the link between interest rates, expected future asset returns and stock-holding. In this paper the link is extended to the petroleum market with the recognition that recorded stocks of oil comprise a small share of annual demand and that the parallel with storable commodities is the decision to produce the oil in the first place, as opposed to holding it in the ground as reserve. Oil reserves are then a key asset in producing countries, which is arbitraged against financial assets. Thus, when the yield on financial assets falls, retaining oil reserves becomes more attractive to producing countries, which then have less incentive to accommodate demand rises, and so the oil price rises. This perspective on oil pricing is modeled in a dynamic multi-region general equilibrium framework in which regional households manage portfolios of assets that include oil reserves. When the model is calibrated to match observed data over two decades, simulation results indicate that asset arbitrage made a large contribution to the high pre-GFC oil price.