the high cost of low wages does maquiladora compensation reduce turnover we determined which compensation practices of american owned plants in mexico reduced turnover regression revealed that profit sharing and saving plans lowered turnover while most pay forms did not we discussed these findings within a national culture approach to compensation administration

money demand and quantity constraints evidence from the soviet interview project i introduction there are more than 500 studies of money demand that use time series or pooled data but less than twenty studies that use cross section data time series studies use a limited number of aggregate variables such as income and wealth cross section studies supplement income and wealth with socioeconomic and demographic variables to provide insights that cannot be detected in aggregate data most studies of money demand are for capitalist countries only a few studies exist for socialist countries there are no cross section studies of the demand for money for socialist countries due to lack of data population censuses of the former soviet union did not provide information on household money and wealth pickersgill 1970 and millar 1987 however the soviet interview project sip survey conducted in 1983 provides a large cross section data set of former soviet citizens sip is a retrospective survey of 2793 former soviet citizens who left the soviet union for the united states during the late 1970s and early 1980s the sip survey asked respondents about their last normal period of life in the soviet union for most respondents this was in the late 1970s a period of normal functioning of the administrative command system sip provides a rich database of conventional variables and includes information on rationing eiar variables and other soviet specific variables eiar variables measure shortages participation in the underground economy and access to privileges we examine the effects of eiar factors on the demand for money in addition to conventional variables to obtain a picture of money demand near the end of the administrative command era this paper makes two contributions it is the first to examine the demand for money in a centrally planned economy using cross section data which tests variables other than income and interest rates second this study empirically investigates the effects of income on the marginal utility of income under rationing by studying how quantity constrained respondents may use trade in convertible foreign currencies or barter when income increases thereby lessening money s role as the medium of exchange the ongoing transformation of the former soviet union to a market economy and political pluralism is not an easy process for policymakers the findings of this study of the behavior of households may be useful in setting monetary policies see also collier and mokhtari 1989 ofer and vinokur 1992 mokhtari and gregory 1993 and mokhtari and asgary 1993 policymakers must know the responses of households to changes in quantity constraints underground economic activity and privileges and to other factors during the transition period and beyond moreover our findings may be useful for researchers who investigate the behavioral differences in the money demand of households in two different economic systems ii past research in the administrative command economy money is held for transaction and precautionary purposes private capital markets are absent investment decisions are made by the government money serves as a medium of exchange and income should be the prime determinant of the demand for money under these conditions money should be a necessity and the income elasticity of demand for money should be positive and less than or equal to one other than income we would expect the demand for money in the soviet union to have different determinants than in capitalist countries first capital markets are absent the interest rate is not the opportunity cost of money second consumer good shortages quantity constraints should affect the transaction and the precautionary demand for money 1 households may substitute money for goods to be able to purchase goods in the future at state prices purchase goods from the underground economy at higher prices or reduce their labor supply barro and grossman 1971 1974 1976

entrepreneurial self efficacy in central asian transition economies quantitative and qualitative analyses in both quantitative and qualitative field studies the self efficacy of entrepreneurs in the transition economies of kazakhstan and kyrgyzstan is examined using a social cognitive framework the complex interaction among these entrepreneurs n 133 personal characteristics environment and self efficacy is analyzed by structural equation modeling their self efficacy was found to have a direct and mediating impact on performance another sample of entrepreneurs from these countries n 239 qualitatively assessed what they actually do in their day to day activities the findings from these two studies contribute to better understanding and have implications for successful entrepreneurial practice in countries undergoing the difficult process of transition to a market economy

effects of post privatization governance and strategies on export intensity in the former soviet union the fall of the soviet union brought new enterprise opportunities whose exploitation required the development of entirely new strategies simultaneously enterprises faced crucial constraints in their governance structures this paper analyzes the impact of governance structures of privatized firms on one key outcome of new strategies export intensity using a longitudinal multi industry dataset of privatized firms in russia ukraine and belarus we analyze how export intensity is mediated by strategies involving product development acquisitions and links with foreign partners

returns to scale in a matching model evidence from disaggregated panel data the returns to scale in the matching function play an important role in models with endogenous search effort due to positive externalities increasing returns to scale in matching can support high or low activity equilibrium in the labour market in this study we examine this issue using panel data from finnish employment offices the study finds that the results from the cobb douglas and translog specification are qualitatively different the cd specification of the matching function exhibits constant returns to scale the translog specification in turn exhibits increasing returns to scale the elasticity estimate for returns using the preferred specification and minimum and maximum sample values for job seekers and vacancies fall in the range of 1 1 to 1 6

high performance work systems and organizational performance across societal cultures this paper assesses whether societal culture moderates the relationship between human resource management hrm practices and organizational performance drawing on matched employer employee data from 387 organizations and 7187 employees in 14 countries our findings show a positive relationship between hrm practices combined in high performance work systems hpws and organizational performance across societal cultures three dimensions of societal culture assessed power distance in group collectivism and institutional collectivism did not moderate this relationship drawing on the ability motivation opportunity amo model we further consider the effectiveness of three bundles of hrm practices skill enhancing motivation enhancing and opportunity enhancing practices this analysis shows opportunity enhancing practices e g participative work design and decision making are less effective in high power distance cultures nevertheless in markedly different countries we find combinations of complementary hpws and bundles of amo practices appear to outweigh the influence of societal culture and enhance organizational performance

is ecommerce boundary less effects of individualism collectivism and uncertainty avoidance on internet shopping from publicly available data we identified two national culture dimensions individualism collectivism and uncertainty avoidance and their interaction that influences internet shopping rates across a wide spectrum of countries together these factors accounted for 14 of the explained variance on top of the combined variance of 63 explained by national income level educational level economic growth rate unemployment rate and crime rate in predicting internet shopping rates for countries lower in uncertainty avoidance individualist cultures show higher internet shopping rates than do collectivist cultures implications for national and internet firm level web design strategies are discussed

modeling greenhouse gas reduction from the australian electricity sector the australian electricity sector is expected to undergo major changes to reduce the current sectoral co2 emission of 190 million tons to 96 million tons by 2050 this paper summarizes two major modeling studies that have been undertaken since 2006 to understand the full set of investment price and financial impact on existing generators especially coal based generators we have used a long term capacity and dispatch optimization model to comprehensively analyze both least cost and market led expansion of the system to accommodate alternative emission reduction targets from a shallow cut to a deep cut the modeling results demonstrate the cost of meeting the target can be over 30 billion in npv terms a mix of clean coal technologies gas and nuclear technologies is expected to displace the existing stock of conventional coal which varies significantly depending on the emission reduction target the analysis also show that mandatory renewable targets or technology standards are inefficient policies in comparison to a market based policy such as the proposed emissions trading scheme

country and organizational level adaptation to foreign workplace ideologies a comparative study of distributive justice values in china russia and the united states drawing from concepts of cultural distance and cultural propensity to change we predict the convergence divergence or crossvergence of distributive justice values in china and russia as compared with us managers using institutional theory we predict responses by organizational type joint ventures foreign owned vs state owned enterprises soes lastly we develop predictions based on the interaction of culture and organizational type results indicate divergence in china regardless of organizational type in contrast differences by organizational type were observed among russian managers with convergence among managers in joint ventures but continuing divergence among managers in soes implications for theory are discussed

problems with repeated measures analysis demonstration with a study of the diversification and performance relationship this study reviews how repeated measures analysis has been applied and discusses alternative approaches for that type of analysis a content analysis of 86 repeated measures studies showed a lack o

managerial metric use in marketing decisions across 16 countries a cultural perspective research on metrics is consistently designated a priority by academics and practitioners however less is known about how culture and cross national differences can potentially impact metric use which is theoretically and managerially limiting this work develops a model that examines national and organizational cultural antecedents while controlling for the decision setting testing the model on data collected from 4384 managerial decisions from 1637 firms in 16 countries reveals that both levels of culture are associated with metric use but each has varying effects our results enable multinational executives to better understand and increase managerial metric use across different cultures and settings

towards a european model of human resource management the concept of human resources management hrm has been much debated in the literature the concept developed initially from work in the u s a in the 1960s and 1970s and since then has been adopted increasingly around the world this paper argues that in europe there is only limited acceptance of the organizational autonomy upon which the concept in based and that therefore different approaches to the notion of human resource management are required external constraints are analysed and a new model of the concept that would encompass eurohrm is proposed

unemployment and market size without strong empirical support labour market matching models typically assume constant returns to scale in matching we construct a tractable equilibrium random matching model with a general matching technology introducing market size effects the job finding rate varies with unemployment stable steady states may occur in regions of increasing or decreasing returns and multiple equilibria are welfare ranked by market size while the standard model relies on high frequency shocks to the steady state to explain the co movement of unemployment and job finding locally decreasing returns in matching generate plausible adjustment dynamics and slower convergence lastly an extension of the hosios condition internalises search externalities

culture and ceo compensation the theory and research on chief executive officer ceo compensation tends to be dominated by assumptions and values reflective of those dominant in the national culture of the united states where most of this work is done this suggests that an underlying theme focuses on how ceo compensation is related to instrumental choices made in a competitive capitalist culture this study seeks to expand the understanding of ceo compensation by examining it in the context of other cultures based on the premise that national culture plays a significant part in the nature of compensation strategies we relate cultural dimensions uncertainty avoidance power distance individualism and masculinity femininity developed by hofstede hofstede 1980a 2001 to several dimensions of ceo compensation these dimensions are total ceo pay the proportion of variable pay to total compensation and the ratio of ceo pay to the lowest level employees the main findings of our paper are 1 all of the different dimensions of ceo pay were related to power distance leading us to infer that ceo pay in a culture is most reflective of the strength of the power structure in a society and 2 total compensation and the ratio of variable pay to total pay are related to individualism we conclude that cultural dimensions can contribute to understanding cross national ceo compensation the implication of this conclusion is that there are different ways that ceo compensation fits into the cognitive schema of various cultures and furthermore that these cognitive schema vary across societies that affect the nature of the cultural matrix into which money is incorporated bloch and parry 1989 p 1 moreover our results imply that particular forms of ceo compensation do not mean the same thing in different cultures but rather carry different symbolic connotations depending on the values dominant in a society thus not only does the compensation structure of a firm within a culture have a symbolic meaning within organizations e g trice and beyer 1993 but it can also be seen as an expression of deeper social values hofstede et al 1990 that may differ across countries

economies of scale in the australian tourism industry the measurement of economies of scale in the tourism industry has not been done to this point as tourism is not a specific industry according to international statistical standards among many industries related to tourism four sectors accommodation transport retail trade and recreational services across six states and two territories from 1997 to 2007 are studied as they contribute nearly 70 of tourism output in australia by comparing regression results from the cobb douglas c d production function and the translog production function we find that there is evidence of increasing returns in transport retail trade and recreational services at the industry level however accommodation is characterized by constant returns to scale at the industry level as accommodation is responsible for the biggest share of tourism output this suggests that overall the tourism sector is not characterized by increasing returns we also find that the degrees of returns to scale from the c d and translog product

resistance to reform status quo bias in the presence of individual specific uncertainty comment why do governments so often fail to adopt policies which economists consider to be efficiency enhancing our answer to this question relies on uncertainty regarding the distribution of gains and losses from reform we show that there is a bias towards the status quo and hence against efficiency enhancing reforms whenever some of the individual gainers and losers from reform cannot be identified beforehand there are reforms which once adopted will receive adequate political support but would have failed to carry the day ex ante the argument does not rely on risk aversion irrationality or hysteresis due to sunk costs jel d72 f13 why do governments so often fail to adopt policies that economists consider to be efficiency enhancing this is one of the fundamental questions of political economy the answer usually relies on what may be

inertia and change in the early years employment relations in young high technology firms this paper considers processes of organizational imprinting in a sample of 100 young high technology companies it examines the effects of a pair of initial conditions the founders models of the employment relation and their business strategies our analyses indicate that these two features were well aligned when the firms were founded however the alignment has deteriorated over time due to changes in the distribution of employment models in particular the star model and commitment model are less stable than the engineering model and the factory model despite their instability these two blueprints for the employment relation have strong effects in shaping the early evolution of these firms in particular firms that embark with these models have significantly higher rates of replacing the founder chief executive with a non founder as well as higher rates of completing an initial public stock offering some implications of these findings for future studies of imprinting and inertia in organizations are discussed

national culture and dividend policy this interdisciplinary study examines how national culture affects corporate dividend policies the dividend puzzle is one of the most studied yet unresolved issues in financial economics prior theoretical and empirical research has suggested several explanations of the dividend puzzle that are rooted mainly in agency asymmetric information bird in hand and pecking order theories the main intuition behind our analysis is that dividend policy may be determined not only by an objective assessment of the severity of agency and asymmetric information problems within a firm but also by management s and investors subjective perceptions of these problems which hinge on their national culture using schwartz s national culture dimensions conservatism and mastery we find that conservatism is positively related and mastery negatively related to dividend payouts for a sample of 27 462 firm years from 21 countries between 1995 and 2007 these effects are robust to controls for a wide variety of other determinants of dividend policy including investor protection stock market performance financial system configuration tax advantage economic development and dividend catering premium and to alternative culture proxies and sub period windows our findings that national culture affects perceptions of and responses to agency and information asymmetry have important implications for policymakers and multinational enterprises

measuring technical progress in matching models of the labour market technical progress in matching models of the labour market has not received serious attention this article examines the impact on the results of these models when an attempt is made to allow time to enter in a realistic fashion and finds that recently published results on the possibility of multiple equilibria are overturned also different parametric representations of the matching technology are compared with problems of more general forms not satisfying regularity conditions being identified while the possibility of pareto improving government intervention due to multiple equilibria arising out of increasing returns to scale cannot be supported the results suggest a role for government intervention in the labour market

a game theoretic analysis of wind generation variability on electricity markets wind generation variability in an energy only market such australian national electricity market nem can create significant revenue uncertainties for incumbent generators and substantially increase price risks faced by retailers this paper presents a cournot game model to formally analyze how high volatility of wind generation in a concentrated energy only market can raise the peak shoulder period of typically low wind generation prices to offset the foregone revenue during off peak periods of high wind generation a monte carlo simulation around a cournot game is formulated as an inter temporal nonlinear optimization problem to assess these issues the model is implemented for the south australian zone of the australian nem that has experienced high growth in wind generation in recent years the model results support some of the observed spot pricing behavior in the region in recent years these findings have significant ramifications for the efficacy of the energy only market in scenarios with high penetration of intermittent generation

probing theoretically into central and eastern europe transactions resources and institutions since the 1990s central and eastern europe cee has provided unique societal quasi experiments which represent opportunities to test the applicability of existing theories in international business and management studies and to develop new ones specifically three lines of theorising have been advanced 1 organisational economics theories 2 resource based theories and 3 institutional theories for each of these theories we discuss how they contribute to the understanding of key issues such as entry strategies of foreign investors restructuring strategies of local incumbents and entry and growth strategies of entrepreneurs on this basis we assess how cee research has influenced the overall trajectories of theory development cee research has in particular highlighted the importance of contextual influences such as institutions thus scholars have aimed at incorporating institutions into theories such as organisational economics theories and resource based theories and advancing an institution based view of business strategy as a complementary perspective we outline how future research in cee and other emerging economies may advance this research agenda further

the impact of the north atlantic oscillation on electricity markets a case study on ireland abstract the north atlantic oscillation nao is a large scale atmospheric circulation pattern driving climate variability in north western europe as the deployment of wind powered generation expands on electricity networks across europe the impacts of the nao on the electricity system will be amplified this study assesses the impact of the nao via wind power generation on the electricity market considering thermal generation costs wholesale electricity prices and wind generation subsidies a monte carlo approach is used to model nao phases and generate hourly wind speed time series data electricity demand and fuel input data a least cost unit commitment and economic dispatch model is used to simulate an island electricity system modelled on the all island irish electricity system the impact of the nao obviously depends on the level of wind capacity within an electricity system our results indicate that on average a switch from negative to positive nao phase can reduce thermal generation costs by up to 8 reduce wholesale electricity prices by as much as 1 5 mwh and increase wind power generators revenue by 12

the effects of wind generation capacity on electricity prices and generation costs a monte carlo analysis abstractwe use monte carlo analysis to examine the potential of increased renewable generation to provide a hedge against variability in energy prices and costs fuel costs electricity demand and wind generation are allowed to vary and a unit commitment and economic dispatch algorithm is employed to produce cost minimizing generation schedules under different levels of installed wind capacity increased wind capacity reduces the mean and the variance of production costs but only the variance of electricity prices wind generators see their market revenues increase while consumer payments and fossil generator profits do not considerably vary as wind capacity increases risk aversion is captured by considering the conditional value at risk for both consumers and producers the optimal level of wind generation increases as risk aversion increases due to the potential of wind to act as a hedge against very high electricity prices in high fuel price scenarios

institutional theory and mnc subsidiary hrm practices evidence from a three country study this study sets out to explore human resource management hrm practices in multinational corporation mnc subsidiaries within an institutional theory framework based on a sample of 158 subsidiaries of mncs operating in the united states russia and finland the paper examines factors hypothesised to influence the hrm practices adapted in us japanese and european mnc subsidiaries located in russia finland and the us the results indicate significant differences in hrm practices used across host countries both the status of the subsidiary human resource department and the degree to which the subsidiary was involved in knowledge transfer with other parts of the mnc had a significant impact on the selection of hrm practices

political economy of pension plans impact of institutions gender and culture abstract national pension systems are an important part of financial intermediation and worker welfare in most countries but how and why do they differ internationally controlling for important political economic and social institutions we document that international differences in pension progressivity or how pensions reflect lifetime earnings are negatively related to masculinity uncertainty avoidance individualism long term orientation employment rights average pension levels social trust and economic inequality we also find that pension progressivity is positively related to the economic and societal role of women the extent of catholicism as well as political voice and accountability these results provide important insights for both public policy and mnc managers

individualism and stock price crash risk employing a sample of 26 473 firms across 42 countries from 1990 to 2013 we find that firms located in countries with higher individualism have higher stock price crash risk furthermore individualism can be transmitted by foreign investors from overseas markets to influence local firms crash risk and can exacerbate the impact of firm risk taking and earnings management on crash risk moreover the positive relation between individualism and crash risk is amplified during the global financial crisis and attenuated by enhanced country level financial information transparency and the adoption of international financial reporting standards

understanding compensation practice variations across firms the impact of national culture with operations spread worldwide firms that find themselves competing in a global marketplace are looking at the implications of the admonition when in rome this raises the question do cultures of countries have an impact on the generally accepted methods of managing human resources the answer to this question is the focus of this article by developing culture specific propositions for four categories of compensation practices based on status performance social benefits and programs and employee ownership plans we seek to determine the extent to which hofstede s four dimensions of culture are associated with specific compensation practices support is found for most of the propositions the implications of the finding for the management of human resources by multinational firms are discussed

did soviet elderly employment respond to financial incentives evidence from pension reforms abstract this study answers the open question of whether workers respond to financial incentives in a command economy to do this i evaluate pension reforms in soviet russia in 1964 and 1969 that allowed pensioners to receive a greater share of their pensions if they worked resulting in a progressive elimination of benefit reduction rates variation in group eligibility and variation in benefit reduction rates in eastern and western regions allow for the use of several difference in differences frameworks i collect and digitize novel data from the soviet archives on pensioner employment constructing the first database of the soviet old age labor market i find that soviet pensioners are responsive to financial incentives by 1969 after the benefit reduction rate fell from an average of 47 8 to 24 1 pensioner employment rates rose by 5 7 percentage points representing a 47 increase finally i provide illustrative estimates of the employment elasticity with respect to the average net of tax rate that range from 0 6 to 1 4

unraveling the mne wage premium whereas ib has extensively studied mnes generic positive impact on host economies but rarely on employee wages economics research has only shown an overall mne wage premium we unravel this premium considering multiple levels of analysis and accounting for host country contextual contingencies to unveil mnes different positive or negative distributional effects using unique micro level data from over 40 000 employees in 13 countries we examine mnes distributional effects for employees gender experience and immigrant status the influence of host country property rights protection and labor regulation and interplays with region and industry effects mnes distributional effects show marked differences that largely depend on the host country context and that are positive for experienced and foreign born employees in developed countries but negative for females working in developing countries whereas in developed countries the gender wage gap is smaller in mnes than in domestic firms as hypothesized we find evidence of a larger wage gap in developing countries the analysis also reveals that the higher host countries level of property rights protection the lower the mne wage premium our study points at the need to reassess statements about the generic positive impact of mnes in host countries particularly in developing countries and discusses further research implications

microeconomic issues in the transition to a market economy evidence from developing countries suggests that a one sided preoccupation with macroeconomic issues may be unfortunate as macro stabilization programs tend to unravel in the presence of an inadequate micro adjustment for example kiguel and liviatan 1990 this finding is important because the socialist system introduced microeconomic distortions that probably transcend those observed in the third world the recent developments in poland yugoslavia and the soviet union also support the hypothesis that macro stabilization will be difficult to achieve in the transforming socialist economies in the absence of adequate micro adjustments in this paper i address what i consider to be the most important micro issues related to the transition from socialist to market economies i first summarize the initial microeconomic conditions and then describe the main changes that have taken place in the early stages of the transition finally i discuss the micro policy agenda that needs to be addressed if the transition is to be successful

competition and privatization amidst weak institutions evidence from mongolia mongolia s mass privatization program was implanted in a country that lacked the very basic institutions of capitalism this paper examines the effects of competition and ownership on the efficiency of the newly privatized enterprises using a representative sample of enterprises and controlling for possible selection biases competition has quantitatively large effects perfectly competitive firms having nearly double the efficiency of monopolies enterprises with residual state ownership appear to be more efficient than other enterprises reflecting an environment where the government was pressured to focus on efficiency and institutions gave little voice to outsider owners jel p0 l1 l33 o12

self selection via fringe benefits this paper extends the theory of self selection to circumstances in which economic agents have some access to markets we use the analysis to explain the existence of multidimensional compensation packages in the presence of limited re marketability employment contracts that include fringe benefits are prominent examples of such multidimensional packages

insider ownership human resource strategies and performance in a transition economy researchers and potential investors in transition economies need to understand the human resource management hrm strategies of target firms since human resources are arguably their most valuable assets understanding is difficult however because hrm strategies help to determine firms performance but are in turn influenced by corporate governance particularly insider ownership this paper employs a structural equation modeling methodology to examine the relations between governance hrm strategies and performance in the context of a novel dataset of ukrainian industrial firms it is found that insider ownership is positively associated with high commitment hrm strategies and negatively with low commitment cost cutting hrm strategies cost cutting hrm strategies are in turn associated with weaker firm performance these outcomes correspond broadly with theoretical expectations

the earnings of soviet workers evidence from the soviet interview project micro data gathered by the soviet interview project provide one of the first opp ortunities for western researchers to investigate the determinants of soviet earnings the data show that soviet labor markets operate in many respects like u s labor markets yet institutional differences remain the most striking institutional impact is that soviet workers are rewarded and penalized for political behavior external to the firm as in the u s education and experience are rewarded men earn more than women however the soviet pattern of returns to education is different returns to experience are lower and occupational segregation of women is less important copyright 1988 by mit press

modelling renewable energy impact on the electricity market in india renewable power generation development most notably for wind and solar has taken off at a rapid pace in india especially in the last 4 years while these developments have many positive aspects a rapid shift in balance of baseload and intermittent generation must be assessed carefully to ensure the share of renewable power generation increases without compromising system security and economics seasonal and spatial variability of wind and to a lesser extent that of solar can render these resources to have low availability for a significant part of the year leading to an increase in unserved energy i e deteriorate system reliability the intermittency of generation also impacts on inter state power flows and lead to higher congestion in the grid climate model results provide a rich set of information on the nature of solar wind variability that can be embedded in an electricity market simulation tool to assess these impacts on prices generation dispatch and power flows we have developed a modelling analysis for the indian national electricity market informed by csiro climate model results we have assessed the added costs arising from intermittency to put in perspective the true costs and benefits of renewable power we have focused on the near term developments in 2017 to show how some of the high renewable growth scenarios included in the indian national electricity plan may imply significant pressure on inter state region transfer capability and lead to a significant worsening of system reliability the outcome of our modelling analysis suggests that a more orderly and balanced development of renewable and conventional power generation capacity is needed with a stronger focus on system economics and security

optimal flexible operation of a co _ 2 capture power plant in a combined energy and carbon emission market since co2 capture and storage ccs is a viable co2 abatement option co2 capture power plants ccpps could become a significant part of the future generation mix this paper investigates the flexibility of the operation of a representative post combustion ccpp with ancillary facilities a mathematical model of the operation of such a plant is developed this model quantifies the relation between the major operating characteristics of a ccpp including efficiency penalty capacity penalty net power output and net co2 emission on this basis a profit maximization model is proposed this model would help a ccpp decide its power output schedule co2 capture schedule and bidding strategies in response of volatile power and carbon prices in a day ahead energy market and a cap and trade carbon emission market the validity and the usefulness of the proposed model are demonstrated using numerical results

strong legacies and weak markets bulgarian state owned enterprises during early transition the authors examine the factors affecting the performance of state owned enterprises soes during early transition to a market economy data come from a longitudinal study of a representative sample of bulgarian soes for the period from 1989 the last year under communism to 1993 three years after major macroeconomic shifts they investigate how changes in authority structure work organization technology marketing strategy and organizational boundaries during these years affected organizational performance in 1993 they also assess the degree of path dependence in performance and the role of competitive industry conditions numerous organizational changes made by soes during early transition had little effect on performance yet organizational performance from 1989 to 1993 was highly path dependent although this dependence was mediated by the competitive conditions stronger markets displayed less path dependence overall the results favor the interpretations derived from selected neo institutional and ecological perspectives of organizational sociology over neoclassical economic interpretations

an assessment of the measurement of performance in international business research a sizeable body of international business ib research is devoted to building knowledge about the determinants of organizational performance a key precursor to accurately diagnosing why some organizations succeed in the international marketplace while others struggle is operationalizing performance appropriately yet to date no systematic investigation has considered how well ib research measures performance we examine the measurement of performance in 96 articles published in the academy of management journal administrative science quarterly journal of marketing journal of marketing research journal of international business studies management science organization science a nd thestrategic management journal between 1995 and 2005 the findings reveal that most studies do not measure performance in a manner that captures the multifaceted nature of the construct we describe the implications of these results and offer suggestions for improving future practice journal of international business studies 2008 39 1064 1080

involvement work systems and operational effectiveness exploring the moderating effect of national power distance work practices that involve employees are generally assumed to be less effective in more hierarchical societies where employees values are not aligned with such practices in this study we challenge this assumption by developing a theory that differentiates between the symbolic and instrumental aspects of involvement work systems and proposing that their symbolic impact will be more pronounced in egalitarian societies whereas their instrumental impact will be more pronounced in hierarchical societies in particular we draw on the symbolic action perspective and theories on culture to test the relationship between involvement work systems and operational effectiveness by incorporating organizational climate of participation and national cultural differences in power distance using multi source multilevel data from 260 facilities of a multinational company operating in 22 countries we found that the mediated relationship between involvement work systems and operational effectiveness through climate of participation i e the symbolic impact was stronger among facilities located in lower power distance societies on the other hand the direct relationship between involvement work systems and operational effectiveness i e the instrumental impact was stronger in higher power distance societies overall our study resolves a seeming cultural dilemma with regard to how involvement work systems operate cross culturally

unemployment labour markets and structural change in eastern europe labour markets in eastern europe michael burda unemployment is a major concern in the transforming economies of central and eastern europe the modern flow approach to labour markets suggests both that unemployment is an important component of the transformation process and that the labour market institutions adopted will influence the rate of unemployment in the long run to date eastern european countries exhibit considerable divergences in several of these institutions especially in unemployment benefit systems collective bargaining structures and active labour market policies an aggregate matching function is successfully estimated for data from czech and slovak employment offices emerging labour markets in the east function not so differently from those in the west the implied dynamics make both big bang and benign neglect unattractive strategies for transformation a mixed bang is more appropriate quantitative evidence about the effects on unemployment of different labour market institutions in oecd countries is used to make long term projections of equilibrium rates of unemployment in central and eastern europe given the labour market institutions now in place there with the possible exception of the czech republic high unemployment is likely to be pervasive and persistent

when does privatization work the impact of private ownership on corporate performance in the transition economies this paper compares the performance of privatized and state firms in the transition economies of central europe while controlling for various forms of selection bias it argues that privatization has different effects depending on the types of owners to whom it gives control in particular privatization to outsider but not insider owners has significant performance effects where privatization is effective the effect on revenue performance is very pronounced but there is no comparable effect on cost reduction overlooking the strong revenue effect of privatization to outsider owners leads to a substantial overstatement of potential employment losses from postprivatization restructuring

returns to scale in a matching model of the labor market abstract this paper presents evidence on the degree of returns to scale in the labor market using a transcendental logarithmic model of the labor market matching technology the empirical results imply locally increasing returns to scale and are consistent with multiple equilibria thereby suggesting a potentially welfare enhancing role for macroeconomic policy intervention

capital market development and mass privatization are logical contradictions lessons from russia and the czech republic the introduction of mass privatization policies in russia and the czech republic depended on the creation of impersonal capital markets to finance the needs of privatized companies and to provide a secondary market for the trading of securities yet mass privatization created the contradictory conditions of generating millions of poorly informed shareholders with no efficient markets for the sale of the shares the absence of financial markets created systematic pressures to move assets by illegal or non transparent means to users who value them more privatization created the incentives to destroy the financial markets critical to its success a comparative case analysis of post privatization market formation in both these countries demonstrates that the functional necessity for these markets does not engender their own creation in the absence of institutional mechanisms of state regulation and trust markets become arenas for political contests and economic manipulation the irony of these policies is that a principal lesson has been that market reforms cannot create viable markets only institutional formation can copyright 2002 oxford university press

national culture the missing country level determinant of corporate governance it is well known that firm level corporate governance practices vary mainly between rather than within countries but country level factors such as legal and financial institutions explain less than 50 of this cross country variation in this article we show that two dimensions of national culture individualism and uncertainty avoidance capture about 90 of the country fixed effects and outperform the country level explanatory variables used in prior literature we argue that culture works through a tradeoff between managerial expertise and certainty of control a tradeoff largely overlooked by prior literature that captures a country s preference for the anglo saxon approach versus the direct control approach for governance consistent with this argument we find that the effect of culture on corporate governance varies across firms with different needs for managerial expertise and certainty of control we also find that culture interacts with other factors to determine firm level governance

culture and congruence the fit between management practices and national culture the financial performance of european and asian work units of one multinational company is examined as a function of the congruence between management practices and national culture using hofstede s five national culture dimensions and analogous management practices we find that work unit financial performance is higher when management practices in the work unit are congruent with the national culture

can maternity benefits have long term effects on childbearing evidence from soviet russia this paper quantifies the effects of russia s 1981 expansion in maternity benefits on completed childbearing the program provided one year of partially paid parental leave and a small cash transfe

employment tenure and earnings profiles in japan and the united states comments the relationship between job tenure and annual earnings in japan has received considerable attention from social scientists examining employment contracts and the japanese compensation system in their widely cited article masanori hashimoto and john raisian 1985 using data for 1980 showed that japanese men have greater job tenure than comparable workers in the united states and that the earnings of japanese men rise more rapidly with increased tenure they found that an additional year of tenure increases earnings in both small and large firms in japan more than does an additional year of general market experience their results for the united states indicate that general market experience increases earnings more than an additional year of job tenure the 1970 s and 1980 s were a period of substantial change in japanese labor markets due to the rapid aging of the population and the restructuring of the economy following the oil crisis the present analysis extends the work of hashimoto and raisian by estimating earnings equations for japanese men for the years 1971 1976 1981 and 1986 specifically we wish to investigate whether hashimoto and raisian s findings have been stable over time or whether changes in the labor market have altered the importance of tenure relative to total labor market experience in the japanese labor market i changes in the labor market

uncertainty avoidance and the timing of employee stock option exercise we examine the impact of the cultural norm of uncertainty avoidance on employee stock option eso exercise behavior using proprietary data from a multinational firm we find that employees from countries with higher levels of uncertainty avoidance exercise their stock options earlier these findings lend support to a maintained assumption in the eso literature that employee attitudes toward uncertainty influence stock option exercise behaviors our findings further help to explain prior findings of cross cultural differences in firms compensation practices by indicating that employee responses to option based pay and firms consequent financial reporting costs vary as functions of employee uncertainty avoidance

what do russian managers really do an observational study with comparisons to u s managers recent events have generated considerable interest but little empirical evidence in russia management this observation study of a sample of managers n 66 in a large textile factory in russia used the same definitions methodology and procedures as a stream of research conducted by luthans and his colleagues on u s real managers see luthans hodgetts and rosenkrantz 1988 similar to american managers the russian managers in this factory were observed in order to perform traditional management communications human resources and networking activities also similar to the managers studied in the u s the russian managers networking activity generally related to their success the relationship between the russian managers various activities and their effectiveness was less clear but like the american managers the communication activity was a significant predictor across analysis techniques the implications these findings have for russia s transition to a market economy are discussed

management development and firm performance in germany norway spain and the uk while comparative studies of human resource management hrm are relatively plentiful few have examined the way organisations in different countries train and develop their managers or the impact of this upon firm performance given the centrality of management capability for corporate and national competitive performance this represents an important area of enquiry utilising telephone interview data from the human resource development manager and a line manager in 482 domestic and multinational organisations in four european countries patterns of management development md are found to differ according to country and to a lesser extent by international strategy however a significantly greater amount of organisational performance is explained by internal md strategies adopted by the organisations concerned and the credence accorded these by line managers

opening the black box of the relationship between hrm practices and firm performance a comparison of mne subsidiaries in the usa finland and russia this paper investigates the extent to which different human resource management hrm practices work better in different countries we also try to open the black box between hrm and multinational enterprise mne subsidiary performance by considering mechanisms through which hrm practices affect mne subsidiary performance the study utilizes a unique data set consisting of subsidiaries of 241 mnes operating in russia usa and finland in the partial least square analysis used to examine our hypotheses we demonstrate that different hrm practices are preferable in different countries and that motivation and ability are important mediating variables in the hrm mne subsidiary performance relationship

translation in cross language international business research beyond equivalence in this paper we problematise the way translation has been treated in international business ib research we start by conducting an interpretive content analysis of both qualitative and quantitative cross language studies published in four core ib journals over the course of a decade our analysis shows the dominance of a technicist view of translation associated with the equivalence paradigm in contrast we advocate a shift to a more contextualised approach informed by theoretical developments in translation studies more specifically we focus on two theoretical perspectives skopos theory and cultural politics which offer related but distinct approaches to rethinking equivalence we conclude by advocating that the translation process be reframed as a process of intercultural interaction rather than a lexical transfer of meaning this reconceptualisation would we argue open up what is currently a black box in most ib studies the contextualised approach that we offer has the potential not just to enrich the findings of studies but also provide insights that are of multidisciplinary relevance

compensation across executive labor markets what can we learn from cross listed firms there is wide consensus that chief executive officers ceos of us firms earn significantly more than their canadian counterparts using a matched sample we find that the majority of this difference is due to us ceos earning 50 more than ceos of canadian non cross listed firms we find no such us premium for canadian cross listed firms because the use of options allows the cross listed firms to keep pace with their neighbors to the south while firms that list only in canada compete in the labor market defined by their national boundary cross listed firms appear to be competing directly with their us counterparts for executive talent in investigating alternative explanations for the elimination of the compensation differential for canadian cross listed firms we find evidence consistent with both the bonding and the rent extraction hypotheses

transmission analysis by nash game method this paper describes an open access transmission method for maximizing profits in a power system the proposed method is based on the nash bargaining game for power flow analysis in which each transaction and its optimal price are determined to optimize the interests of individual parties transmission losses are considered by the proposed method and test cases and results are discussed to present the merits of the proposed method

the effect of human resource management practices on mnc subsidiary performance in russia this study investigates the relationship between human resource management hrm and the performance of 101 foreign owned subsidiaries in russia the study s results provide support for the assertion that investments in hrm practices can substantially assist a firm in improving performance further different hrm practices for managerial and non managerial employees are found to be significantly related to firm performance only limited support however is obtained for the hypothesized relationship between efforts at aligning hrm practices with firm strategy and subsidiary performance

does human resource management matter in a transitional economy china as an example this paper investigates the significance of how firms manage their human resources hrs within the confines of powerful social institutions in a transitional economy the people s republic of china china we propose that two dimensions the role of human resource management rhr and followers perception of the leader top are important contributors to firm performance as are the influences of the regional economy and firm ownership we tested our hypotheses with a survey of 180 firms from nine cities in china we found that both role of hrm rhr and follower s perception of top level management top are important to firm performance the study confirms that while social institutions remain powerful in a transitional economy effective hrm is important to firm performance

the determinants of equilibrium unemployment the paper takes the search and matching model of the aggregate labor market to the data it tests the model s empirical validity and employs structural estimation to generate a characterization of the optimal behavior of firms and workers the model is applied to israeli data that are uniquely suited for this kind of empirical investigation the structural estimates are used to quantify the frictions embodied in the model including the costs of search the congestion and trading externality effects and the matching process a calibration simulation analysis then studies the effect of several key variables on equilibrium unemployment

multicommodity spatial cournot model for generator bidding analysis conventional behavioral models such as cournot to analyze generator behavior do not reflect many of the complexities of advanced electricity markets dispatch and pricing in a number of advanced pool based electricity markets worldwide explicitly recognize the co optimization of ancillary services as well as transmission constraints this paper discusses the development of and experiments with a multimarket cournot model that deals with co optimization of multiple commodities namely energy and various classes of ancillary services and deals with transmission constraints that separate these commodity markets spatially we also discuss the multimarket extension of the cournot model to deal with bilateral contracts for energy a nonlinear programming formulation of the proposed model and the analysis of nodal prices are presented followed by a detailed set of experiments using a simple three node system the model is expected to add to understanding of complex interactions between energy and ancillary services markets and further the impact transmission capacity limits may have on exercise of market power of each of these markets

the road taken origins and evolution of employment systems in emerging companies excerpt drawing on a unique archive of qualitative and quantitative data describing 100 bay area high technology firms within their first decade this paper examines the models of employment relations espoused by company founders and bow those models shaped the evolution of human resource management within their organizations information gleaned from interviews suggests that founders and others involved in designing and launching these companies had blueprints for the employment relation that varied along three key dimensions the primary basis of employee attachment and motivation the primary means for controlling and coordinating work and the primary criterion emphasized in selection based on combinations of these three dimensions firms in our sample cluster fall into one of four distinct types which we label the star factory engineering and commitment models multivariate statistical analyses document how the founder s employment model shaped the subsequent adoption and timing of various human resource policies and documents over these companies early histories as well as the speed with which the first full time human resource manager was appointed the findings are strongly suggestive of complementarities and a tendency toward internal consistency among dimensions of human resource management and of strong path dependence in the evolution of employment systems in organizations some implications of these findings for transactions cost perspectives on the employment relationship are discussed

capacity and energy only markets under high renewable penetration this paper presents a multi nodal intertemporal cournot gaming model with transmission constraints and uses it to simulate energy only and capacity energy market designs in the presence of uncertainties stemming from intermittent renewable power generation both market paradigms are compared to a competitive benchmark in order to determine which one performs better in a concentrated market with significant penetration of wind and solar generation as a specific example the model is applied to the south australian zone of the australian national electricity market nem the simulation results for the time interval 2013 2030 show that the capacity energy market has the potential to induce significant new capacity and push prices much closer to the competitive level in contrast to the current energy only market design