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1 – 10 of 16Thomas Georgiadis and George Christopoulos
The purpose of this paper is to focus on the investigation of gender inequalities in the labour market at the regional level in Greece throughout the years preceding and following…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on the investigation of gender inequalities in the labour market at the regional level in Greece throughout the years preceding and following the economic crisis.
Design/methodology/approach
Utilising microdata from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) database from 2005 up to the most recent available, the authors construct the Total Earnings Gap Index, a composite index at the individual level which incorporates gender differentials in aspects related to employment, work intensity and earnings. This approach is further complemented by the results of the econometric analysis (a probit model for the probability of being in employment and a Heckman selection model for the determinants of hourly pay and hours worked), which portray the impact of gender on a set of labour-related characteristics.
Findings
The findings of the analysis indicate a widespread reduction of the gender gap; however, this appears to be mainly the result of a sharper fall in employment among men, hence pointing towards a “race to the bottom” process which presents few – if any – signs of an increase of women’s economic independence. The emerging picture points towards a trend of regional convergence in gender gaps, while also highlighting that similar gender equality outcomes are, in certain cases, shaped by radically different dynamics.
Originality/value
This paper uses an innovative composite index which provides a multi-dimensional depiction of gender inequality in the Greek labour market. This index has been introduced by Eurostat and has been applied at the country level, with this paper being the first – to the authors’ knowledge – to apply it at the regional level. Additionally, by examining years before and throughout the crisis, the present analysis adopts a dynamic perspective, offering valuable insight into the seismic shifts that Greece’s labour market structure has undergone during this period.
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I. Scott, A. Vukovic and P. Sewell
The purpose of this paper is to report on the use of conjugate‐gradients (CG) as a means to accelerate the convergence of the iterative time‐reversal algorithm used for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report on the use of conjugate‐gradients (CG) as a means to accelerate the convergence of the iterative time‐reversal algorithm used for optimisation of electromagnetic devices.
Design/methodology/approach
The numerical time‐domain transmission line modelling method is used for time‐reversal optimisation. A comparison of the standard and CG time‐reversal is shown for two examples of microwave bandpass filter optimisation.
Findings
The paper demonstrates the time‐reversal optimisation that uses the CG matrix solver for perturbing the time reversal mirrors (TRM) fields.
Originality/value
The paper outlines the perturbation procedure of the CG time‐reversal and compares it to the standard time‐reversal optimisation. Two examples of microwave band pass filter optimisation have been considered and in each case it was demonstrated that CG time‐reversal significantly accelerates the optimisation process compared to the standard time‐reversal simulations.
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Sarah George Lauwo, John De-Clerk Azure and Trevor Hopper
This paper examines the accountability and governance mechanisms and the challenges in a multi-stakeholder partnership seeking to implement the Sustainable Development Goals…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the accountability and governance mechanisms and the challenges in a multi-stakeholder partnership seeking to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a developing country (DC), namely Tanzania.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on work on the shift from government to governance to meta-governance to examine the SDGs framework's governance regime. The data stems from documentation, focussed group discussions and face-to-face interviews with key stakeholders involved in the localisation of SDGs in Tanzania.
Findings
Despite the emphasis given by promoters of SDGs on the need for multi-stakeholder engagement, and network and market-based governance, Tanzania's hierarchical governance framed in national legislations dominated the localisation of the SDGs. The national-level meta-governance structures were somewhat dysfunctional, partly due to a lack of well-designed coordination mechanisms for collaborative engagement with key stakeholders. The limited involvement of different meta-governors, and particularly network and market-based governance arrangements, has had severe implications for achieving the SDGs in DCs in general and Tanzania, in particular.
Practical implications
The paper calls for a more explicit SDG policy and strategy, alongside strengthening institutional structures and related governance arrangements in Tanzania, to promote the realisation of the SDGs. For the SDGs framework to succeed, the authors suggest that, in addition to adopting SDG friendly policies, the Tanzanian government should devise plans for financial resources, strategies for empowering and engaging with key stakeholders and promote an integrative governance system that underpins accountability at the local level.
Originality/value
Focussing on Tanzania, the paper sheds light on how context in DCs, interactions between state and non-state actors, modes of governance and accountability mechanisms shape the localisation of SDGs and realising the SDGs' agenda. The implementation in Tanzania focussed on priorities in the development plan, thereby neglecting some important SDGs. This raises doubts about the possibility of meeting the SDGs by 2030. The localisation of SDGs remained within the top-down governance structure, as Tanzania's government failed to enact the policy and strategy for multi-stakeholder partnership consistent with the SDGs' principle of “leave no-one behind”. Consequently, meta-governors' efforts and ability to monitor and demand accountability from the government was constrained by the political context, the governance system and regulations enacted to side-line them.
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Robert Charnock and Keith Hoskin
This paper brings insights from accounting scholarship to the measurement and reporting challenges of metagovernance approaches to sustainable development. Where scholarship on…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper brings insights from accounting scholarship to the measurement and reporting challenges of metagovernance approaches to sustainable development. Where scholarship on metagovernance—the combination of market, hierarchical and network governance—proposes deductive approaches to such challenges, we contend that a historically informed “abductive” approach offers valuable insight into the realpolitik of intergovernmental frameworks.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a Foucauldian “archaeological–genealogical” method to investigate the inclusion of climate change as a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). It analyses more than 100 documents and texts, tracking the statement forms that crystallise prevailing truth claims across the development of climate and SDG metagovernance.
Findings
We show how the truth claims now enshrined in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change constrained the conceptualisation and operationalisation of SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. The paper thereby reframes recent measurement and reporting challenges as outcomes of conceptual conflicts between the technicist emphasis of divisions within the United Nations and the truth claims enshrined in intergovernmental agreements.
Originality/value
This paper demonstrates how an archaeological–genealogical approach may start to address the measurement and reporting challenges facing climate and SDG metagovernance. It also highlights that the two degrees target on climate change has a manifest variability of interpretation and shows how this characteristic has become pivotal to operationalising climate metagovernance in a manner that respects the sovereignty of developing nations.
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Since 2004, the British Government has delivered a national policy on social marketing that has created a new frame of reference in this field. This paper aims to study the…
Abstract
Purpose
Since 2004, the British Government has delivered a national policy on social marketing that has created a new frame of reference in this field. This paper aims to study the genesis, evolution and implementation of the policy process that led to an important development in British public health.
Design/methodology/approach
An in-depth multifaceted single case study, mixing qualitative and quantitative data including participatory research, enabled by a cognitive approach based on elements of knowledge, ideas, representations and social beliefs in the elaboration of a public policy.
Findings
This approach to understanding the British policy on social marketing process demonstrates a useful explanatory capacity, producing a comprehensive articulation of the main cognitive, normative, and instrumental dimensions of this policy, including its significant mutations influenced by the 2008 Great Recession and subsequent political evolution.
Research limitations/implications
This paper has followed the British social marketing policy’s implementation in England. In Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, this national policy had specific developments that it was not followed in our study In general, subject to complex historical, social and political conditions, this is a field that preserves its dynamism and the ability to question concepts and processes. Ever seeking new directions and solutions, it requires an ongoing research study.
Practical implications
Conclusions speak in favour of a prescriptive framework for a national policy on social marketing that can inform other government entities’ efforts to develop similar policies in other countries. A correct understanding of such a political process can lead to better management of its development and its consequent contribution to improving social marketing policy and interventions.
Social implications
A proper conception and management of a social marketing policy can contribute to improving the well-being of citizens.
Originality/value
It is the first time that this specific cognitive approach has been applied so systematically to a national social marketing policy through a long-term research, providing a prescriptive framework for other’ efforts to develop similar policies.
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Lewend Mayiwar and Thorvald Hærem
The authors draw on arousal-based models to develop and test a model of open-office noise and information processing. Specifically, the authors examined whether open-office noise…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors draw on arousal-based models to develop and test a model of open-office noise and information processing. Specifically, the authors examined whether open-office noise changes how people process information and whether such a change has consequences for task performance.
Design/methodology/approach
In a laboratory experiment, the authors randomly assigned participants (107 students at a business school) to either a silent condition or a condition that exposed them to open-office noise (irrelevant speech) while completing a task that requires cognitive flexibility. The authors measured participants' physiological arousal and the extent to which they processed information intuitively and analytically during the task.
Findings
Open-office noise increased urgent processing and decreased analytical processing, which led to a respective decrease and increase in task performance. In line with a neuroscientific account of cognitive processing, an increase in arousal (subjective and physiological) drove the detrimental effect of open-office noise on task performance.
Practical implications
Understanding the information-processing consequences of open-office noise can help managers make more informed decisions about workplace environments that facilitate performance.
Originality/value
The study is one of the first to examine the indirect effects of open-office noise on task performance through intuitive and analytical processing, while simultaneously testing and providing support for the accompanying physiological mechanism.
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Richard Cebula, James E. Payne, Donnie Horner and Robert Boylan
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of labor market freedom on state-level cost of living differentials in the USA using cross-sectional data for 2016 after…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of labor market freedom on state-level cost of living differentials in the USA using cross-sectional data for 2016 after allowing for the impacts of economic and quality of life factors.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses two-stage least squares estimation controlling for factors contributing to cost of living differences across states.
Findings
The results reveal that an increase in labor market freedom reduces the overall cost of living.
Research limitations/implications
The study can be extended using panel data and alternative measures of labor market freedom.
Practical implications
In general, the finding that less intrusive government and greater labor freedom are associated with a reduced cost of living should not be surprising. This is because less government intrusion and greater labor freedom both inherently allow markets to be more efficient in the rationalization of and interplay with forces of supply and demand.
Social implications
The findings of this and future related studies could prove very useful to policy makers and entrepreneurs, as well as small business owners and public corporations of all sizes – particularly those considering either location in, relocation to, or expansion into other markets within the USA. Furthermore, the potential benefits of the National Right-to-Work Law currently under consideration in Congress could add cost of living reductions to the debate.
Originality/value
The authors extend the literature on cost of living differentials by investigating whether higher amounts of state-level labor market freedom act to reduce the states’ cost of living using the most recent annual data available (2016). That labor freedom has a systemic efficiency impact on the state-level cost of living is a significant finding. In our opinion, it is likely that labor market freedom is increasing the efficiency of labor market transactions in the production and distribution of goods and services, and acts to reduce the cost of living in states. In addition, unlike previous related studies, the authors investigate the impact of not only overall labor market freedom on the state-level cost of living, but also how the three sub-indices of labor market freedom, as identified and measured by Stansel et al. (2014, 2015), impact the cost of living state by state.
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Maciel M. Queiroz, Susana Carla Farias Pereira, Renato Telles and Marcio C. Machado
The Industry 4.0 phenomenon is bringing unprecedented disruptions for all traditional business models and hastening the need for a redesign and digitisation of activities. In this…
Abstract
Purpose
The Industry 4.0 phenomenon is bringing unprecedented disruptions for all traditional business models and hastening the need for a redesign and digitisation of activities. In this context, the literature concerning the digital supply chain (DSC) and its capabilities are in the early stages. To bridge this gap, the purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for digital supply chain capabilities (DSCCs).
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a narrative literature approach, based on the main Industry 4.0 elements, supply chain and the emerging literature concerning DSC disruptions, to build an integrative framework to shed light on DSCCs.
Findings
The study identifies seven basic capabilities that shape the DSCC framework and six main enabler technologies, derived from 13 propositions.
Research limitations/implications
The proposed framework can bring valuable insights for future research development, although it has not been tested yet.
Practical implications
Managers, practitioners and all involved in the digitalisation phenomenon can utilise the framework as a starting point for other business digitalisation projects.
Originality/value
This study contributes to advancing the DSC literature, providing a well-articulated discussion and a framework regarding the capabilities, as well as 13 propositions that can generate valuable insights for other studies.
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Robert Anthony Allen, Giannis Panagoulis and Gareth Reginald Terence White
In order to address operational effectiveness in the banking sector caused by the 2008 global economic crisis, the purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of operational…
Abstract
Purpose
In order to address operational effectiveness in the banking sector caused by the 2008 global economic crisis, the purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of operational wastes that exist within four large Greek banks.
Design/methodology/approach
A Delphi study was undertaken with ten managers and ten employees.
Findings
The waste of underutilised people is found to be the dominant form of waste present and affecting the efficiency of banking operations, and managers and employees consider the waste of underutilised people as having a significant influence on the efficiency of the banking sector.
Practical implications
This has implications for managers of banking operations needing to address efficiencies in an increasingly competitive global economic environment. The paper also highlights the drawbacks of analysing typologies of waste across organisations and industrial sectors.
Originality/value
While some studies have examined the overall efficiency banking sector, to date, none has explored the nature of the inefficiencies that manifest as waste.
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Jonathan Kimmitt, Vesna Mandakovic and Pablo Muñoz
Social entrepreneurs engage in action because social entrepreneurs want to solve social problems. Consequently, to see more social entrepreneurship in contexts with the most…
Abstract
Purpose
Social entrepreneurs engage in action because social entrepreneurs want to solve social problems. Consequently, to see more social entrepreneurship in contexts with the most severe social problems is expected. This paper argues that this is an oversimplification of the problem-action nexus in social entrepreneurship and that action does not necessarily correspond to the observed scale of social problems. Drawing on the theoretical framing of crescive conditions, this relationship is affected by forms of public investment as institutions that distinctively promote engagement and public interest amongst social entrepreneurs. Thus, this paper assesses the relationship between varying levels of social problems and social entrepreneurship action (SEA) and how and to what extent public investment types – as more and less locally anchored crescive conditions – affect this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypotheses are tested with a series of random-effects regression models. The data stem from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor's (GEM) 2015 social entrepreneurship survey and Chile's 2015 National Socioeconomic Characterisation Survey (CASEN). The authors combined both data sets and cross-matched individual-level data (action and investment) with commune-level data (social problem scale) resulting in unique contextualised observations for 1,124 social entrepreneurs.
Findings
Contrary to current understanding, this study finds that SEA is positively associated with low-social problem scale. This means that high levels of deprivation do not immediately lead to action. The study also finds that locally anchored forms of investment positively moderate this relationship, stimulating action in the most deprived contexts. On the contrary, centralised public investment leads to increased social entrepreneurial action in wealthier communities where it is arguably less needed.
Originality/value
The findings contribute to the literature on SEA in deprived contexts, social and public investment as well as policy-level discussion and broader issues of entrepreneurship and social problems.
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