Search results
1 – 10 of 17This paper analyses the stalling of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and its systemic and institutional consequences through a geopolitical economy approach that integrates the…
Abstract
This paper analyses the stalling of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and its systemic and institutional consequences through a geopolitical economy approach that integrates the French school of international economic relations and Régulation Theory. These approaches put states and their economic roles at the fore, correcting dominant free trade approaches to world trade. The paper also avoids monocausal explanations for trade talk deadlocks and aims to provide a comprehensive approach on the co-evolution of world trade patterns and its institutions. In this approach, the DDA stalemate is traced to an institution-structure mismatch in how states articulate their accumulation strategies and institutions (competition, state regulation, adhesion to international regime) to the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime occasioned by the emergence of new trade powers. This has given rise to three distinct conflicts in how member states navigate between the main parameters of the multilateral trading system (non-discrimination, reciprocity and balance of power) and their national accumulation strategies: the erosion of non-discrimination and reciprocity; the failure to build an operational compromise between development and ‘globalization’, that is, between multilateral openness and new trade and power balances; and the difficulty in reaching a compromise between historical and emerging capitalisms. The outcome of these conflicts will determine the institutional configuration of the post-Doha WTO agenda.
Details
Keywords
Alina Botezat, Cristian Incaltarau, Sabina Ana Diac and Alexandra Claudia Grosu
This paper aims to extend the scope of previous studies on education-occupation mismatch to explicitly focus on the role high school track choices have on the risk of being…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to extend the scope of previous studies on education-occupation mismatch to explicitly focus on the role high school track choices have on the risk of being mismatched in the labor market.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses the most exhaustive available database regarding the early-career paths of university graduates in Romania. Using a novel matching technique, entropy balancing (EB), our study relies on multinomial logit models and logit regressions to estimate the effect of the completed high school track on the likelihood of being mismatched in the labor market. The empirical analysis focuses on two types of education-occupation mismatches: horizontal and vertical mismatches.
Findings
We show that studying a different field in college compared to the completed high school track increases the risk of being skill mismatched in the first job after graduation. Five years after college graduation, the influence of the high school track fades, while being skill mismatched in the first employment plays a more important role. In contrast, we find no evidence that pursuing a college major unrelated to the completed high school track increases the probability of being overeducated. However, being overeducated in the first job increases the risk of being overeducated five years later.
Originality/value
The study brings new reliable evidence on the extent to which high school track choices may contribute to the risk of being mismatched in the labor market.
Details
Keywords
Manpower planners in less‐developed countries have traditionally considered their greatest challenges to be:
Nedal Al-Fayoumi and Bana Abuzayed
– The purpose of this paper is to examine if the simultaneous openness to trade and capital account can promote financial sector development.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine if the simultaneous openness to trade and capital account can promote financial sector development.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a sample of 12 Arab countries over the period from 1985 to 2011, the data were analyzed using the dynamic and static panel data analysis. In particular, the authors apply three estimate techniques: the generalized method of moments, fixed effects and random effects.
Findings
The empirical results do not support the simultaneous openness hypothesis. Even trade and financial openness have an important separate role in enhancing financial sector development; their interaction effect is harmful. This empirical evidence indicates that opening Arab countries to both trade and capital account will not necessarily promote financial sector development.
Research limitations/implications
Some Arab countries are not included in the study sample because of the lack of data.
Practical implications
The main implication of this study is: opening Arab countries for trade and capital account at the same time will not improve the development of financial sector.
Social implications
The paper examines one of the most important issues in developing countries; where, the people want to know if the country openness to trade and finance will generate a social and economic welfare for them.
Originality/value
This study can be considered as one of the rare studies that examine the simultaneous openness issue in the developing countries. It recommends regulators and policy makers to take gradual steps toward adopting trade and financial openness in the Arab countries.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to test the effectiveness of collaborative dialogue to support small business development in small communities.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test the effectiveness of collaborative dialogue to support small business development in small communities.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs a case study involving collaboration using both an interpersonal network structure and an inter‐organizational project structure.
Findings
the paper finds that collaboration mobilizes local resources to fill structural and relational gaps in the local institutional environment for SMEs.
Research limitations/implications
The research agenda for collaborative planning should include studying institutional factors that can hinder some actors such as small businesses from participating.
Originality/value
The paper provides practical experience of banks as community development actors, and identifies a potential conflict in normative collaboration theory between inclusiveness/diversity and a “higher level” institutional focus.
Details
Keywords
Purpose – This chapter examines how informal and formal entrepreneurial institutions are influenced by economic crises. These institutions act as the foundation for many, if not…
Abstract
Purpose – This chapter examines how informal and formal entrepreneurial institutions are influenced by economic crises. These institutions act as the foundation for many, if not all, entrepreneurial activities, but they are highly vulnerable to change during times of crisis.
Design/methodology/approach – This chapter uses a case study of software entrepreneurs in Ottawa, Canada, to better understand the influence of the 2001 and 2008 recessions on the social and economic aspects of entrepreneurship. This case is examined through a set of 39 semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs, investors, and economic development officers.
Findings – While informal entrepreneurial institutions have adapted to a changing economic environment, formal institutions and government programs have so far failed to do this. This results in less effective entrepreneurship support programs.
Research limitations/implications – As with other qualitative case studies, these findings are not generalizable to other regions. This chapter calls for further research is needed to better understand the social forces behind institutional change.
Practical implications – This chapter argues that entrepreneurship support programs must be customized to the informal social institutions that underlie all entrepreneurial behavior and practices. This alignment potentially increases the usefulness of such programs to entrepreneurs.
Originality/value of the paper– While entrepreneurship in Ottawa has been carefully studied, there has been very little work examining how technology entrepreneurship in Ottawa has fared after the decline of the telecommunications market. This chapter is useful to both entrepreneurship scholars as well as practitioners and policy makers interested in how entrepreneurial institutions react to crises.
Details
Keywords
Abstract
Purpose
External environment drives established enterprises to employ management innovation. Drawing on dual-process theories, this paper purports to investigate TMT's intuitive and rational decision-making styles as mediating roles between perceived environmental turbulences and management innovation, and explain how organizational slack play an critical moderating role.
Design/methodology/approach
SPSS 25 is used to test 120 established enterprises' top management team (TMT) samples in China, and the moderated mediation model is empirically tested by using hierarchical regression analysis and conditional process analysis.
Findings
Perceived environmental turbulences promotes management innovation. Organizational slack as contextual variable influences the relationship between technology turbulence and TMT's decision-making styles. Interestingly, only perceived technology turbulence indirectly affects management innovation through TMT's intuitive decision-making when moderated by organizational slack. However, the indirect effect from perceived market turbulence to management innovation through TMT's rational decision-making is not significant when moderated by organizational slack.
Originality/value
Based on management innovation's human agency perspective, TMT's decision-making styles have not been discussed in research on management innovation. This paper sheds light on TMT's decision-making styles as mediating role.
Details
Keywords
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report a pilot project on quality control in China's government department (AQSIQ), based on an extended EFQM excellence model.
Design/methodology/approach
After careful comparisons, the EFQM Excellence Model was selected as the fundamental framework for further practice and analysis. The original Excellence Model was extended into three‐section style in the ongoing Super‐ministry Reform. The extended model includes decision‐making, implementation, and supervision. With a brief introduction on AQSIQ in current reform, the first quality control practice in China was investigated in terms of responsibilities, standards, supervision, and assessment. Achievements from quality control were obtained after analysis.
Findings
The extended Excellence Model enabled AQSIQ great achievements. This paper finds that, with the guidance under this extended model, a unified leadership with reallocation in people, policy, and partnership has significantly promoted the performance in decision‐making. Further, with regard to principle of simplicity as the key basis of process reengineering, the two‐way innovation and learning feedback mechanism in this model have simplified the process and enhanced knowledge process in the government. Finally, efficiency being the main focus in performance reassessment was also accomplished by this quality practice.
Practical implications
The initial success of AQSIQ has practical and managerial values. On the practical side, the implications in the AQSIQ case that are embodied in the ongoing Super‐ministry Reform in China help to shape fundamental quality control framework in China's government sectors. Two probable managerial enlightenments are for the theory of process engineering and the quality control in theoretical dimension. Therefore, this extended excellence model could further spread into other departments with careful considerations.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to research the first quality control practice in China's government department.
Details
Keywords
EU social policy is perhaps the most controversial aspect of Europeanintegration yet, despite all the political clashes on the matter,concepts like “social Europe” or “social…
Abstract
EU social policy is perhaps the most controversial aspect of European integration yet, despite all the political clashes on the matter, concepts like “social Europe” or “social dimension” remain ill‐defined and imprecise terms. Intends to outline and clarify in detail the debate about whether or not the European Union should have competence with regard to labour market affairs. A key message is that social policy has been controversial because it has become embroiled in the debate about the future political direction of the EU. In particular, three contrasting political models –symbiotic integration, integrative federalism and neo‐liberalism – have been put forward as organizing principles for the EU and each has a coherent view of what form social policy should take at the European level. It is the clash between these three models that has caused EU social policy to be so contestable and intractable.
Details