Search results

This paper contributes to the theory of the relationship between human resource management (HRM) and innovation at small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by conducting a conceptual analysis of the question why Germany boasts by far the highest number of “Hidden Champion” SMEs. This is done by case studies from the army and public financial management of aid disbursal in developing countries. Implications for HRM at SMEs are discussed.

Conceptual analysis using case studies.

Contributing towards filling the gap concerning theoretical underpinnings of the link between HRM and innovation, we suggest that interdisciplinary work from relevant organisational case studies indicates that the concept of institutional design to provide motivational incentives may be relevant, especially concerning high performance systems with bundles of HRM practices. Specifically, the fundamental principle of subsidiarity is found to be important.

The research is broadly applicable to organisations of all kinds, as the diverse case studies indicate. We point towards tentative implications for the firms that account for the majority of the work force, namely SMEs, and among them the most successful ones, the so-called “Hidden Champions”.

HR managers can improve motivation, performance and innovation by decentralising decision-making as far as possible, while ensuring the overall organisational goals are well understood and shared, and resources are dedicated to train and educate staff. Additionally, the conception of rank-order competitions complements the institutional design.

Greater productivity and material performance as well as greater job satisfaction via larger autonomy and decision-making power on the local level can be achieved by the application of subsidiarity as key HRM configuration. This can be employed at SMEs, as discussed, but also other organisations. Further, the principle of subsidiarity and the greater emphasis on staff training and education may help reduce inequality.

Our paper contributes towards filling the gap in the literature on the link between HRM and innovation, by identifying the role of subsidiarity. We introduce an interdisciplinary perspective, with contributions from economics and psychology, among others. We also contribute to the history of HRM.

Strategic partnerships and construction supply chain management are claimed to improve productivity through their capabilities of managing internal and external relations between stakeholders. Thus, this study aims to present an analysis of a major Danish contractor group’s efforts to increase performances by building trust and long-term relationships across stakeholders of complex building projects with use of these managerial initiatives.

Scrutinising the social reality of the group, neo-institutional theory provides the analytical lens of an interpretivist case study drawing on empirical data (i.e. interviews and observations) collected through one year of enrolment in the group.

Findings reveals that internal organisational circumstances negatively influence the efforts to implement logics of strategic partnerships and construction supply chain management. Nevertheless, we propose organisational practitioners to obtain the perspectives of hybridisation as a fruitful concept for creating productive interactions between otherwise distinct managerial logics.

The triangulation of the interpretivist data is limited to generalisations based on only one group operating in the Danish construction industry. However, the assumption is that critical implications of hybridity address generic issues across the industry.

Organisational practitioners should experiment with hybridity of managerial mechanisms and dynamics, which potentially can influence the construction industry positively by innovating the operational performances in the entire value chain.

The inquiry contributes to the puzzle of integrating strategic partnerships and construction supply chain management by rethinking dualism of logics generating alternatives of how hybridity can increase performance by combining various aspects of managerial initiatives.

This chapter examines representations of gender in online modafinil markets. While gender has often been absent from scholarship on online drug markets, our analysis demonstrates the ubiquity of gender in representations of modafinil users and sellers. The analysis draws on visual images, blogs, and marketing emails relating to three websites selling modafinil, discussed pseudonymously. We describe the range of ways that notions of gender are represented in advertising. Although women represent around 40% of that buying modafinil online, websites and communications tended not to feature women. Although sexist stereotypes of women were rarely present (in contrast to direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising), the ways that modafinil was imagined tended to focus narrowly on corporate spheres of work and productivity. We contrast this narrow imaginary with female journalists’ own accounts of using modafinil to manage illness and enhance creativity. Thus, we conclude that the ways that modafinil has been imagined reflects working assumptions as to who is considered the ‘normal’ participant in online modafinil markets.

The literature mostly investigates the business cycle transmission of the United Kingdom (UK) and France as a part of a wider group (e.g. European Exchange Rate Mechanism or G7), despite their historical links and regional significance. Thus, herein paper aims to analyse the inter-dependence of these economies and how a shock from one of them affects the other for the data since 1978 to 2019.

In this paper, first, preliminary statistics were calculated in order to describe the historical relationship between these countries. The econometric part estimates the vector auto-regression model (VAR) to assess the inter-dependence of the economies. VAR model allows further to inspect the impulse response functions that shows the shock dynamics from one country to another. In order to verify if a shock from one of the economies is important to another, the study uses granger causality test.

The study establishes a strong link between these countries. A business cycle is transmitted significantly between the economies of France and UK, with a single standard deviation shock from France resulting in a long term effect of 0.4% change in gross domestic product (GDP) of UK and 1% vice versa. Additionally changes in GDP of both of the countries significantly Granger-cause change to GDP of the corresponding economy.

This is the first empirical study investigating the business cycle transmission between France and UK and providing a quantitative assessment of their inter-dependence.

This article examines the impact of population age structure on the real exchange rate. Data on a panel of 22 OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) countries over 1980–2015 period are used to estimate the empirical model. Using fixed effect model the paper finds that different age cohorts have a significant influence on the real exchange rates in the sample countries. The results are mostly consistent with the theoretical framework discussed in the paper and also with the findings of previous studies in this area. These results have important policy implications given the fact that the population is ageing in almost all the OECD economies these days.

This paper aims to revisit the relationship between intangible capital and labour productivity growth using the largest, up-to-date macro database (2000–2015) available to corroborate the econometric findings of earlier work and to generate novel econometric evidence by accounting for times of crisis (2008–2013) and economic recovery (2014–2015).

To achieve these aims, this paper employs a cross-country growth accounting econometric estimation approach using the largest, up-to-date database available encompassing 16 EU countries over the period 2000–2015. The paper accounts for times of crisis (2008–2013) and of economic recovery (2014–2015). It separately estimates the contribution of three distinct dimensions of intangible capital: (1) computerized information, (2) innovative property and (3) economic competencies.

First, when accounting for intangibles, the paper finds that these intangibles have become the dominant source of labour productivity growth in the EU, explaining up to 66 percent of growth. Second, when accounting for times of crisis (2008–2013), in contrast to tangible capital, the paper detects a solid positive relationship between intangibles and labour productivity growth. Third, when accounting for the economic recovery (2014–2015), the paper finds a highly significant and remarkably strong relationship between intangible capital and labour productivity growth.

This paper corroborates the importance of intangibles for labour productivity growth and thereby underlines the necessity to incorporate intangibles into today's national accounting frameworks in order to correctly depict the levels of capital investment being made in European economies. These levels are significantly higher than those currently reflected in the official statistics.

The aim of this paper is to disentangle the contemporaneous and non-contemporaneous relationship between regional business cycles and manufacturing productivity in a developing country, namely Colombia.

The methodology is quantitative. To deal with the problems of endogeneity in the production function and with the law motion of productivity (the Markov process), the authors obtain Total Factor Productivity (TFP) through the Wooldridge’s two equations system that can be jointly estimated under the generalized method of moments framework (GMM). Secondly, to avoid bias we estimate regional business cycles through the Kalman filter. Subsequently, we implement an instrumental variables/generalized method of moments regression (IV/GMM) to capture the contemporaneous and endogenous TFP–GDP cycles’ linkage at the regional level. Lastly, to deal with the non-contemporaneous link, the authors estimate a vector autoregressive model with exogenous variables (VARX) for each region. We also present the corresponding impulse–response functions.

The authors’ general results suggest a remarkable causality, both contemporary and non-contemporary, from productivity to GDP (but not vice versa) in the most developed regions of the country. This implied productivity could influence in the economic growth of regions in short and long runs. These results are different than those expected by economic theory and should be considered by local economic policy makers.

The authors consider that a more detailed analysis should be carried out at the level of each sector within the manufacturing industry to further clarify these findings.

The policy should be oriented to obtaining cutting-edge technologies through subsidies, and also should facilitate the access to financial capital and the investment in R&D laboratories. On the other hand, the link with international trade also must be reinforced because the importing of intermediate inputs and exporting of output allow the firms to obtain embodied technologies, also to incur on learning by exporting and importing processes and finally to gain experience and competitiveness in foreign markets.

The causality in the region that provides more than 50% of economic activity within the country (Third region) is only in one directional, from TFP towards gross domestic product (GDP) and not vice versa. As the influence from GDP towards TFP is minimal in the remaining regions, the manufacturing productivity influences both short and long run regional economic growth in Colombia. This implies that economic policy at the level of macro-region must be modified; the government should give additional support to the manufacturing sector, especially in developed regions and for the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (wich represent 92% of manufacturing firms) to increase economic growth in the future.

The authors’ contribution is threefold. First, they pay special attention to the contemporaneous cyclical relationship (i.e. pro-cyclical, counter-cyclical or acyclic) and the non-contemporaneous causality with productivity. Second, they estimate productivity with the GMM two equation system considering an endogenous Markov process. Third, to the best of their knowledge, at least in the case of Latin America, there are no studies in this direction combining these statistic methods, including that of Colombia.

Karl Marx's social capital reproduction theory is his significant contribution to economics. The purpose of this paper is to review the contributions of the exploration of Chinese economists (especially Professor Liu Guoguang) in the concretization of Marx’s social capital reproduction theory combined with socialist construction since 1949.

During this process, Professor Liu Guoguang, a famous Chinese Marxist economist, has made an outstanding contribution by creating a Marxist social capital reproduction model with Chinese characteristics and a distinctive Marxist economic growth model. Professor Liu's exploration is still of crucial practical significance to building a socialist market economy today.

The process and achievements in the sinicization exploration of Marx's social capital reproduction theory were reviewed. With the reform and opening up, fundamental changes have occurred in China's economic system – the centralized planned economic system has been transformed into a socialist market economic system.

The planned management of the national economy is replaced by a macro-regulation system characterized by gross control gradually, and the concepts of agriculture, light industry, and heavy industry, and their intercorrelation are no longer applied in theory and policy. However, the sinicization exploration of Marx's social capital reproduction theory in the older generation of Marxist economists represented by Liu is not only of historical significance but also of important practical significance.