Health care costs in workers' compensation

Although the costs of both the medical and indemnity components of workers' compensation have increased substantially in the past several years, the costs of medical benefits grew far more dramatically.     

Predator or prey? Effects of farm growth on neighbouring farms

We provide explorative insights on how farms which manage strong and successful growth affect farms in their neighbourhoods through spatial competition for land. The study is based on an exploratory analysis of repeated framed experiments within the business game FarmAgriPoliS (Appel & Balmann, Ecological Complexity, 40, 2019). In particular, we analyse the spatial influences of different behavioural clusters of farm managers. Our analysis finds that farms which manage strong growth substantially affect the development of farms in a spatial neighbourhood of some 10 km. Although the influence on the neighbourhood decreases with distance, the functional correlations of farm growth as well as exits are neither linear nor exponential, but eventually rather wave-like. We further discuss the spatial interdependence of farms and the related overlaps of the predator–prey phenomenon with the phenomena of farms' path dependency and agricultural structural change. We conclude that along with farmers' strategies and their abilities, the characteristics of their neighbours and the distances between neighbouring farms also determine who is ‘predator’ and who is ‘prey’.     

Surrogate modelling of a detailed farm-level model using deep learning

Technological change co-determines agri-environmental performance and farm structural transformation. Meaningful impact assessment of related policies can be derived from farm-level models that are rich in technology details and environmental indicators, integrated with agent-based models capturing dynamic farm interaction. However, such integration faces considerable challenges affecting model development, debugging and computational demands in application. Surrogate modelling using deep learning techniques can facilitate such integration for simulations with broad regional coverage. We develop surrogates of the farm model FarmDyn using different architectures of neural networks. Our specifically designed evaluation metrics allow practitioners to assess trade-offs among model fit, inference time and data requirements. All tested neural networks achieve a high fit but differ substantially in inference time. The Multilayer Perceptron shows almost top performance in all criteria but saves strongly on inference time compared to a Bi-directional Long Short Term Memory.     

Assessing Personality Patterns of Functioning in a Decision-Making Ambiguous Task: The Rorschach Reality–Fantasy Scale (RFS-2)

Various studies suggest that individual differences in personality patterns of functioning are strong determinants of both psychopathological manifestations and negotiation effectiveness in high functioning individuals. It has been argued that the lack of empirical confirmation for these claims is attributable to methodological limitations. The present paper suggests using the Reality–Fantasy Scale Version 2 (RFS-2), as a measure of these patterns while confronting the ambiguous task of the Rorschach Inkblot Method. Participants were three samples of young Israeli adults collected in three periods that differ in terms of frequency and severity of terrorist attacks conducted against civilians. The findings point out that unlike the level of subjective distress, which was lower in less threatening periods, fundamental personality characteristics (i.e. the capacity for differentiation and integration of internal and external realms of experience) were found to be similar in all the three samples despite notable changes in external circumstances of the long standing, fluctuating political conflict in the Middle East.     

Made in America? the us auto industry, 1955-95

This paper examines the production and political responses of the Big Three auto assemblers to the penetration of the North American market by Japanese auto assemblers over the 1955-95 period, using the technological competition model to analyze three successive challenges faced by the Big Three: import competition (1955-73), surplus capacity (1973-83), and transplant production (1983-95). We argue that the US auto makers first responded with intensification strategies and then by rationalizing production. These production strategies, together with lobbying for favorable US government policies, were unsuccessful in stemming import penetration. It was only after the Japanese firms began onshore production that the Big Three understood the competitive challenge-the need to shift from mass to lean production-and began to transform their auto operations.     

In Pursuit of Dignity and Social Justice: Changing Lives Through 100?% Inclusion—How Gram Vikas Fosters Sustainable Rural Development

This case study investigates Gram Vikas?? innovative social entrepreneurial approach to sustainable rural development through its ??Water and Sanitation Programme??. We explore its key innovation of 100?% inclusion and the process of creating democratic, self-governing management systems. This allows us to demonstrate how a social enterprise tries to realize its vision of ??an equitable and sustainable society where people live in peace with dignity??, and ultimately, how it contributes to the United Nations Millennium Goals of improving health, empowering women and breaking the vicious circle of poverty. We also discuss the management challenges that the organisation faces in the area of finance, personnel management and scaling up.     

On the monetary impact of fashion design piracy

Whether to legally protect original fashion designs against piracy is an ongoing debate among legislators, industry groups, and legal academic circles, which has gained little exposure in the marketing literature. We combine data on the growth of fashion designs, price markups, and industry statistics to develop a formal analysis of the essential questions at the base of the debate. We distinguish between three effects: Acceleration, whereby the presence of a pirated design increases the awareness of the design; Substitution, which represents the loss of sales due to consumers who would have purchased the original design, yet instead buy the knockoff; and loss because of Overexposure of the design resulting from the design's ubiquity. Using data-driven simulation analysis, we find that for the items analyzed (handbags and apparel), overexposure emerged as having a stronger negative effect (on average) on the original's profitability than the positive effect of acceleration. Both effects are considerably larger than that of substitution. This result is of particular interest given that industry groups have consistently focused on the damage caused by substitution. We also show that the effect of a legally mandated postponement on the introduction of a knockoff is non-monotonic for short lag: A short time lag may not affect the original design's NPV, and in fact may even damage it. For the ranges we analyzed, the positive effect of the protection period is observed primarily for time lags of over one year.     

Multinational corporations and economic nationalism: Conflict over resource development in Canada

Faced with rising Third World nationalism, multinational corporations engaged in resource exploitation are turning back to higher cost but apparently politically more secure investments in the industrialized states. To what extent does the dynamic of government– resource industry relations in an industrialized setting differ from the pattern observed in the Third World? To answer this question the article analyses the decision to nationalize the potash industry in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan using models of host government–MNC conflict developed by Vernon, Mikesell and Moran to study Third World cases. The research suggests that the dynamic logic of government-industry conflict in a developed country setting is very similar to the pattern observed in the Third World. The decentralized Canadian federation, the ideology of the party in power in Saskatchewan and the nature of the potash industry combine to structure a situation in which coercive nationalization of a resource industry was seen as the only policy option.     

The future of social media in marketing

Social media allows people to freely interact with others and offers multiple ways for marketers to reach and engage with consumers. Considering the numerous ways social media affects individuals and businesses alike, in this article, the authors focus on where they believe the future of social media lies when considering marketing-related topics and issues. Drawing on academic research, discussions with industry leaders, and popular discourse, the authors identify nine themes, organized by predicted imminence (i.e., the immediate, near, and far futures), that they believe will meaningfully shape the future of social media through three lenses: consumer, industry, and public policy. Within each theme, the authors describe the digital landscape, present and discuss their predictions, and identify relevant future research directions for academics and practitioners.