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1 – 10 of 170Edward Shepard and Thomas Clifton
This paper provides statistical evidence of the effects of overtime hours on worker productivity using aggregate panel data for 18 manufacturing industries within the US economy…
Abstract
This paper provides statistical evidence of the effects of overtime hours on worker productivity using aggregate panel data for 18 manufacturing industries within the US economy. An economic production function model is specified and estimated using data for the years 1956‐1991 provided by the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US Department of Commerce, and the Federal Reserve Board. Standard approaches are applied to specify and estimate a factor‐augmented production function model, with possible effects of overtime on productivity incorporated through the specification of factor effort functions. The empirical results suggest that use of overtime hours lowers average productivity, measured as output per worker hour, for almost all of the industries included in the sample. These results hold up under several alternative specifications and estimation techniques, including controls or corrections for autocorrelation, heteroskedasticity, rates of capacity utilization, and possible endogeneity of the constructed variable representing use of overtime hours.
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Thomas J. Clifton and Edward Shepard
This paper provides statistical evidence about the effect of work and family programs on productivity using a sample of large Fortune 500 companies in 30 industries in the US…
Abstract
This paper provides statistical evidence about the effect of work and family programs on productivity using a sample of large Fortune 500 companies in 30 industries in the US economy. Cross‐sectional firm‐level data on work and family programs are combined with financial data on companies to estimate production functions. Alternative specifications and estimation techniques are applied, including ordinary least squares and two‐stage least squares, with controls or corrections for union status, capital quality, heteroskedasticity, and possible endogeneity of company work‐family programs. The empirical results suggest that work‐family support programs succeed in improving productivity. The positive effects on firm performance may help to explain the growth and spread of work and family programs among US corporations in recent years. Further research is needed to evaluate the economic costs of work and family programs and to identify the mechanisms whereby work and family programs result in improved productivity.
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Since the late eighteenth century, American men have supported women's equality. (see Kimmel and Mosmiller, 1992). Even before the first Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls…
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Since the late eighteenth century, American men have supported women's equality. (see Kimmel and Mosmiller, 1992). Even before the first Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York heralded the birth of the organized women's movement in 1848, American men had begun to argue in favor of women's rights. That celebrated radical, Thomas Paine, for example, mused in 1775 that any formal declaration of independence from England should include women, since women have, as he put it, “an equal right to virtue.”(Paine, [1775] 1992, 63–66). Other reformers, like Benjamin Rush and John Neal articulated claims for women's entry into schools and public life. Charles Brockden Brown, America's first professional novelist, penned a passionate plea for women's equality in Alcuin(1798).
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Leon C. Prieto, Simone Trixie Allison Phipps and Babita Mathur-Helm
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to knowledge in the field of business by recognizing two historic entrepreneurs who played an important role in the African-American…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to knowledge in the field of business by recognizing two historic entrepreneurs who played an important role in the African-American community, and by viewing their contributions through the lens of servant leadership.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is conducted by reviewing and synthesizing a number of writings from sources, such as history journals, newspapers and other resources.
Findings
The main finding is that two former slaves (Merrick and Herndon) practiced servant leadership in the early twentieth century as a way to create jobs and transform communities.
Originality/value
The contributions made by African-Americans have not been adequately covered in the literature. This paper begins to fill a noticeable void by highlighting the contributions of two former slaves who managed to become successful servant leaders within their communities.
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Sarah Lubik, Sirirat Lim, Ken Platts and Tim Minshall
As traditional manufacturing, previously vital to the UK economy, is increasingly outsourced to lower‐cost locations, policy makers seek leadership in emerging industries by…
Abstract
Purpose
As traditional manufacturing, previously vital to the UK economy, is increasingly outsourced to lower‐cost locations, policy makers seek leadership in emerging industries by encouraging innovative start‐up firms to pursue competitive opportunities. Emerging industries can either be those where a technology exists but the corresponding downstream value chain is unclear, or a new technology may subvert the existing value chain to satisfy existing customer needs. Hence, this area shows evidence of both technology‐push and market‐pull forces. The purpose of this paper is to focus on market‐pull and technology‐push orientations in manufacturing ventures, specifically examining how and why this orientation shifts during the firm's formative years.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case study approach of 25 UK start‐ups in emerging industries is used to examine this seldom explored area. The authors offer two models of dynamic business‐orientation in start‐ups and explain the common reasons for shifts in orientation and why these two orientations do not generally co‐exist during early firm development.
Findings
Separate evolution paths were found for strategic orientation in manufacturing start‐ups and separate reasons for them to shift in their early development. Technology‐push start‐ups often changed to a market‐pull orientation because of new partners, new market information or shift in management priorities. In contrast, many of the start‐ups beginning with a market‐pull orientation shifted to a technology‐push orientation because early market experiences necessitated a focus on improving processes in order to increase productivity or meet partner specifications, or meet a demand for complementary products.
Originality/value
While a significant body of work exists regarding manufacturing strategy in established firms, little work has been found that investigates how manufacturing strategy emerges in start‐up companies, particularly those in emerging industries.
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This chapter examines the 1999 trial of Aaron McKinney for the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming whose death propelled forward an incipient…
Abstract
This chapter examines the 1999 trial of Aaron McKinney for the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming whose death propelled forward an incipient movement to legislate against hate crimes. It explores the competing ways in which Aaron McKinney was conjured as a legal persona, defined through the opposing lenses of gay panic and of homophobic hate. It situates those personae in conflicting narratives of criminal culpability emerging out of indeterminate legal doctrines and definitions (the unwritten law; the meaning of ‘malice’), and argues that in conjuring them, adversarial criminal trials necessarily destabilise the ‘default legal person’. In doing so, trials performatively reconstruct the past in ways that both mark and mask a past events. In the McKinney case, contests over his culpability emerged against a backdrop of loss, both epistemological and affective, generating a projective reckoning with Shepard’s death in ways that enabled a politically transformational mourning process.
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Many jurisdictions fine illegal cartels using penalty guidelines that presume an arbitrary 10% overcharge. This article surveys more than 700 published economic studies and…
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Many jurisdictions fine illegal cartels using penalty guidelines that presume an arbitrary 10% overcharge. This article surveys more than 700 published economic studies and judicial decisions that contain 2,041 quantitative estimates of overcharges of hard-core cartels. The primary findings are: (1) the median average long-run overcharge for all types of cartels over all time periods is 23.0%; (2) the mean average is at least 49%; (3) overcharges reached their zenith in 1891–1945 and have trended downward ever since; (4) 6% of the cartel episodes are zero; (5) median overcharges of international-membership cartels are 38% higher than those of domestic cartels; (6) convicted cartels are on average 19% more effective at raising prices as unpunished cartels; (7) bid-rigging conduct displays 25% lower markups than price-fixing cartels; (8) contemporary cartels targeted by class actions have higher overcharges; and (9) when cartels operate at peak effectiveness, price changes are 60–80% higher than the whole episode. Historical penalty guidelines aimed at optimally deterring cartels are likely to be too low.
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THE Wanstead Library is just round the corner from the shopping centre in the High Street where the old shop branch existed for many years. The new Library is a large…
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THE Wanstead Library is just round the corner from the shopping centre in the High Street where the old shop branch existed for many years. The new Library is a large, single‐storey structure with floor to ceiling windows facing Christchurch Green, a charming open space with well established trees. This spacious, attractive building is in complete contrast to the cramped accommodation previously occupied and local reaction has been emphatically favourable.